I think this is true, and it's a logical progression really. MS won the "pc wars" by being ubiquitous, letting 3rd party hardware m/fs do their thing. It was kinda messy, but everyone gained. We gained cheap and upgradeable PCs, MS dominated their market, countless business sprung up supporting PCs, countless vendors emerged selling more and more amazing technology, cheaper and cheaper, until we hardly knew what to do with the cycles, hence the stunning games we have now.
Consoles wouldn't have evolved to the state they are now, if it weren't for PCs having set a very high standard for gaming, and all the existing R&D that had gone into graphics because of the PC gaming market.
Seriously, people forget how much we have to thank MS's efforts for - and IBM's for the original open PC. MS had to support hundreds of vendors writing drivers for all manner of cards and peripherals, always pushing what a PC could do, and MS had to provide a platform to support it all. It was a truly world-changing effort, whatever people say about MS's market tactics. The result is that *everyone owns a computer*, when 30 years ago they were only hobby or specialist machine.
And that isn't even mentioning Windows in the workplace, which opened up a whole other world, and then there's the commodity server market making up much of the Internet, which is dominated by Linux and Windows.
I grew up with the whole "Evil MS Empire" thing, but I feel very nostalgic and think we have a lot to thank them for.
Facebook as the right to use any material you post on it, afaik.
If I do the clicks necessary to repost someone FB work elsewhere on FB, isn't that the same as FB displaying your work wherever it likes? Not saying you're wrong, just asking the question.
Sooo.. we can get arrested for making a bad joke, but incitement to violence and parading banners like "behead those who insult [deity here]" is perfectly ok freedom of speech. Weird place we live in.
That sounds an even worse situation than if there were a coherent vision.
It implies high-impact decisions like this are thought of only in the short term. Little consideration for how such legislation could be abused down the track, etc. That can't be a good thing.
So early adopters of a completely new UI still prefer the old UI they've been used to for decades. Wow.
Microsoft particularly, however, aren't having a good time with their recent UI changes. The last two Visual Studio versions have been met with complaints. VS 2010 because of UI slowness and difficultly to customise. The latest, VS 2012, "Metrofication" created an uproar. http://visualstudio.uservoice.com/forums/121579-visual-studio/filters/top
Hmm. Somebody should do a study to compare the difference in benefit between a) direct reduction of water/electricity/fuel use by an individual, and b) global reduction of the same if consumers *bought less stuff*.
For example, if everyone who already owns an iPhone 4 refused to buy the 5, what would that resource saving (assuming they weren't manufactured in the first place of course) be equivalent to, in terms of individual usage?
What I mean is, industry uses far more resources than individuals, and people resist the "green" message because it often means more costs or inconvenience for the *consumer*. But if we just didn't buy so much crap, maybe we'd have *more* impact than if we cycled to the shops instead of driving. That sort of thing.
Or in short "people can't be bothered about long-term problems."
This has been pretty much borne out by every failed civilisation throughout human history, whether it's the Incas or the Athenians. Even modern Greece is now seeing the results of poor forward thinking. In my view, our economic system works well during boom times - ie. most of the 20th century - but completely fails when times are tough. Mainly because economic theory is based on a small sub-set of human behaviour in a small sub-set of environmental conditions.
We've managed to work out a good "growth" strategy, but I don't think we actually have a "survival" strategy. They're two different things; and people behave differently in those two different situations.
The other reason that "Average Global Temps Expected to Rise By 1-2 Degrees Celsius Over the Next 50-100 years" is not relevant to the average person, is that "Global Social and Economic Collapse By The Mid-21st Century" is first on the list.
3D Studio, Blender, etc, are HORRIBLE UI's simply because they *overload* the user with too *many* widgets.
No, there you are falling into your own trap. There is no one UI paradigm to rule them all. For example, MS Office users were used to their toolbar, "cluttered" as it was with an entire row of 3d buttons. Heck, many users dared to even *add* buttons to the toolbar. But the UI choice was to *give people the choice* of what they wanted on the toolbar. MS had the right idea with toolbars - let people customise. Some wanted simple, others wanted complex.
Now, of course, Office has this homogenised toolbar, which tries to be what a *designer* thought *everyone* should be happy with. And nary a single power user was happy with it. It was an example of people seeing Apple's iPhone and suddenly thinking, OMG we need to update out UI because, like, it's not "intuitive" enough, because Apple's is somehow "intuitive".
Yes, Apple's is intuitive for a smartphone. But I ask you - how do define "intuitive" for complex software like MS Office, Photoshop, 3DS, SAP, etc? The answer is you CAN'T. The best you can do is let people *customise*. Why? Because it's not a friggin phone with little apps with simple workflows. People use productivity software DIFFERENTLY and will have different workflows, and the best UIs let them customise to their workflow.
I agree with you about the "flat" approach, I think it's a fad and will eventually die. It's a weird time we're in - everyone's suddenly experimenting with UI, thanks to Apple seemingly scaring everyone into thinking their product isn't hip enough, with the result that UI is being dumbed down (as opposed to redesigned intelligently). It's all a bit silly and reactionary and I'll wait for the correction which will be Windows 9.
The distinction between a "smart phone" and a PC is almost exclusively one of marketing.
That's ridiculous. You're saying a small, hand-held device, with a tiny screen, limited physical connectivity, limited peripherals, not even USB or upgradeable memory in many cases; a device you can only run a small subset of programs on, simply from a practical, usability standpoint is "mainly a distinction of marketing"?
Post-PC era my arse. Wake me up when I can use Photoshop, SAP, Office, Cubase Audio or Visual Studio on my phone - or my tablet for that matter. Oh and can connect a proper monitor to it, so I don't have to squint - and real keyboard, and maybe hook a mouse to it, so I can work properly when sitting at a desk. And be able to transfer files to any other device I use, and and play all those cool new games... THEN I'll agree it's the post-PC era.
So can you really say that you're going against a "herd mentality" by buying a product that has the marketshare lead?
Buying an "Android phone" over an iPhone is like buying a PC over a Mac. You buy one that suits YOU. There are many different types of Android phone, some with different UI, all quite customisable. There is only one iPhone 5, and it works the same way for everyone. There's little "herdness" about Android, because of the large range of devices that use it.
But Android has 80% of the market, right? How is buying an iPhone "going with the herd"?
By the fact that buying an "Android phone" over an iPhone is like buying a PC over a Mac. You buy one that suits YOU. There are many different types of Android phone, some with different UI, all quite customisable. There is only one iPhone 5, and it works the same way for everyone.
every major famine in the 20th Century was caused NOT by major crop failures
You're not comparing apples with applies, so to speak. The reasons major crop failure never resulted in major famine - IN THE PAST - are: a) species variability - we have high species homogeneity now. b) limited distribution - we have industrial distribution across entire countries.
Basically our food distribution chain now is high in efficiency but low in resilience. In the past, it was the other way around.
No matter how well armed you are, if you have something worth stealing, there will always be someone better armed than you and enough desperate people with nothing left to lose to overwhelm your defenses.
Really? I believe feudalism worked quite well for landholders for centuries. You do need to be well armed though, and rather "strict".
To a degree. Remember, the Vatican itself had stated it has no problem whatsoever with evolution. I'm not religious, but am aware that "religion" is generalised a little too much. There are the open-minded religious and the idiotic religious - just as there are open-minded atheists and idiotic atheists.
Unlike the needlessly-contentious Mr Dawkins, I see no issue with religion co-existing with science. They're two different things. Indeed I see religious belief as the natural heritage of being human, just as scientific enquiry is. We do tend to anthropomorphise a lot. It makes us happy. Big deal. The only problem is when people want to make religion rule over science, or vice versa. Both are relevant and significant to the human condition.
Jesus.. your description of the PS3 reminds me programming assembler on my old C64. I thought it would have been a lot more high level these days, even when it comes to games.
Gender doesn't come into it. Very few of the people I've known throughout my life, male or female, have been what I'd call truly kind, generous, giving, altruistic people. Most people, all over the world, are generally fairly selfish. That doesn't have to be a value judgement either, it's just how human beings are. Very few of us see past our immediate concerns.
Slashdot Mirror
Everyone's an opportunist.
Australian capital city here. You can buy houses - actual houses - over there for under $400k? Consider yourself lucky!
I think this is true, and it's a logical progression really. MS won the "pc wars" by being ubiquitous, letting 3rd party hardware m/fs do their thing. It was kinda messy, but everyone gained. We gained cheap and upgradeable PCs, MS dominated their market, countless business sprung up supporting PCs, countless vendors emerged selling more and more amazing technology, cheaper and cheaper, until we hardly knew what to do with the cycles, hence the stunning games we have now.
Consoles wouldn't have evolved to the state they are now, if it weren't for PCs having set a very high standard for gaming, and all the existing R&D that had gone into graphics because of the PC gaming market.
Seriously, people forget how much we have to thank MS's efforts for - and IBM's for the original open PC. MS had to support hundreds of vendors writing drivers for all manner of cards and peripherals, always pushing what a PC could do, and MS had to provide a platform to support it all. It was a truly world-changing effort, whatever people say about MS's market tactics. The result is that *everyone owns a computer*, when 30 years ago they were only hobby or specialist machine.
And that isn't even mentioning Windows in the workplace, which opened up a whole other world, and then there's the commodity server market making up much of the Internet, which is dominated by Linux and Windows.
I grew up with the whole "Evil MS Empire" thing, but I feel very nostalgic and think we have a lot to thank them for.
Facebook as the right to use any material you post on it, afaik.
If I do the clicks necessary to repost someone FB work elsewhere on FB, isn't that the same as FB displaying your work wherever it likes? Not saying you're wrong, just asking the question.
Sooo.. we can get arrested for making a bad joke, but incitement to violence and parading banners like "behead those who insult [deity here]" is perfectly ok freedom of speech. Weird place we live in.
Firefox has detected an old method of formulating humorous remarks. It is strongly recommended you update to the latest method.
"We’ll be sure to update you once we have additional details .."
Is there an option to not be updated with additional details?
That sounds an even worse situation than if there were a coherent vision.
It implies high-impact decisions like this are thought of only in the short term. Little consideration for how such legislation could be abused down the track, etc. That can't be a good thing.
So early adopters of a completely new UI still prefer the old UI they've been used to for decades. Wow.
Microsoft particularly, however, aren't having a good time with their recent UI changes. The last two Visual Studio versions have been met with complaints. VS 2010 because of UI slowness and difficultly to customise. The latest, VS 2012, "Metrofication" created an uproar. http://visualstudio.uservoice.com/forums/121579-visual-studio/filters/top
Hmm. Somebody should do a study to compare the difference in benefit between
a) direct reduction of water/electricity/fuel use by an individual, and
b) global reduction of the same if consumers *bought less stuff*.
For example, if everyone who already owns an iPhone 4 refused to buy the 5, what would that resource saving (assuming they weren't manufactured in the first place of course) be equivalent to, in terms of individual usage?
What I mean is, industry uses far more resources than individuals, and people resist the "green" message because it often means more costs or inconvenience for the *consumer*. But if we just didn't buy so much crap, maybe we'd have *more* impact than if we cycled to the shops instead of driving. That sort of thing.
Or in short "people can't be bothered about long-term problems."
This has been pretty much borne out by every failed civilisation throughout human history, whether it's the Incas or the Athenians. Even modern Greece is now seeing the results of poor forward thinking. In my view, our economic system works well during boom times - ie. most of the 20th century - but completely fails when times are tough. Mainly because economic theory is based on a small sub-set of human behaviour in a small sub-set of environmental conditions.
We've managed to work out a good "growth" strategy, but I don't think we actually have a "survival" strategy. They're two different things; and people behave differently in those two different situations.
The other reason that "Average Global Temps Expected to Rise By 1-2 Degrees Celsius Over the Next 50-100 years" is not relevant to the average person, is that "Global Social and Economic Collapse By The Mid-21st Century" is first on the list.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth
http://www.csiro.au/files/files/plje.pdf (CSIRO's recent validation of the above)
1. Global socio-economic catastrophe
2. Global temperature rise by 2 degrees
3. ???
4. Profit.
3D Studio, Blender, etc, are HORRIBLE UI's simply because they *overload* the user with too *many* widgets.
No, there you are falling into your own trap. There is no one UI paradigm to rule them all. For example, MS Office users were used to their toolbar, "cluttered" as it was with an entire row of 3d buttons. Heck, many users dared to even *add* buttons to the toolbar. But the UI choice was to *give people the choice* of what they wanted on the toolbar. MS had the right idea with toolbars - let people customise. Some wanted simple, others wanted complex.
Now, of course, Office has this homogenised toolbar, which tries to be what a *designer* thought *everyone* should be happy with. And nary a single power user was happy with it. It was an example of people seeing Apple's iPhone and suddenly thinking, OMG we need to update out UI because, like, it's not "intuitive" enough, because Apple's is somehow "intuitive".
Yes, Apple's is intuitive for a smartphone. But I ask you - how do define "intuitive" for complex software like MS Office, Photoshop, 3DS, SAP, etc? The answer is you CAN'T. The best you can do is let people *customise*. Why? Because it's not a friggin phone with little apps with simple workflows. People use productivity software DIFFERENTLY and will have different workflows, and the best UIs let them customise to their workflow.
I agree with you about the "flat" approach, I think it's a fad and will eventually die. It's a weird time we're in - everyone's suddenly experimenting with UI, thanks to Apple seemingly scaring everyone into thinking their product isn't hip enough, with the result that UI is being dumbed down (as opposed to redesigned intelligently). It's all a bit silly and reactionary and I'll wait for the correction which will be Windows 9.
Just curious, why don't they put solar cells on phones, so we have longer battery life if out in the sunshine? Or at least a small attachment for it?
The distinction between a "smart phone" and a PC is almost exclusively one of marketing.
That's ridiculous. You're saying a small, hand-held device, with a tiny screen, limited physical connectivity, limited peripherals, not even USB or upgradeable memory in many cases; a device you can only run a small subset of programs on, simply from a practical, usability standpoint is "mainly a distinction of marketing"?
Post-PC era my arse. Wake me up when I can use Photoshop, SAP, Office, Cubase Audio or Visual Studio on my phone - or my tablet for that matter. Oh and can connect a proper monitor to it, so I don't have to squint - and real keyboard, and maybe hook a mouse to it, so I can work properly when sitting at a desk. And be able to transfer files to any other device I use, and and play all those cool new games... THEN I'll agree it's the post-PC era.
So can you really say that you're going against a "herd mentality" by buying a product that has the marketshare lead?
Buying an "Android phone" over an iPhone is like buying a PC over a Mac. You buy one that suits YOU. There are many different types of Android phone, some with different UI, all quite customisable. There is only one iPhone 5, and it works the same way for everyone. There's little "herdness" about Android, because of the large range of devices that use it.
But Android has 80% of the market, right? How is buying an iPhone "going with the herd"?
By the fact that buying an "Android phone" over an iPhone is like buying a PC over a Mac. You buy one that suits YOU. There are many different types of Android phone, some with different UI, all quite customisable. There is only one iPhone 5, and it works the same way for everyone.
every major famine in the 20th Century was caused NOT by major crop failures
You're not comparing apples with applies, so to speak. The reasons major crop failure never resulted in major famine - IN THE PAST - are:
a) species variability - we have high species homogeneity now.
b) limited distribution - we have industrial distribution across entire countries.
Basically our food distribution chain now is high in efficiency but low in resilience. In the past, it was the other way around.
No matter how well armed you are, if you have something worth stealing, there will always be someone better armed than you and enough desperate people with nothing left to lose to overwhelm your defenses.
Really? I believe feudalism worked quite well for landholders for centuries. You do need to be well armed though, and rather "strict".
Oblig: Bloody peasants.
we cannot do anything about global warming & peak oil in the short term
The key word there is "we". Individuals can do things. Us collectively - that's another issue entirely.
Typical straw man. You're talking about violent religious people, not religious people.
Violent people will find an excuse to be violent, whether it's religion, jealousy, honour or simple disagreement.
If you think eliminating religion will magically eliminate violent madmen with bombs, you're mistaken.
To a degree. Remember, the Vatican itself had stated it has no problem whatsoever with evolution. I'm not religious, but am aware that "religion" is generalised a little too much. There are the open-minded religious and the idiotic religious - just as there are open-minded atheists and idiotic atheists.
Unlike the needlessly-contentious Mr Dawkins, I see no issue with religion co-existing with science. They're two different things. Indeed I see religious belief as the natural heritage of being human, just as scientific enquiry is. We do tend to anthropomorphise a lot. It makes us happy. Big deal. The only problem is when people want to make religion rule over science, or vice versa. Both are relevant and significant to the human condition.
Google is a public company. I believe CEOs are required, by law, to put shareholder return first.
That law stinks, and may be the cause of almost all our woes on this planet, but mainly it's why Google most likely won't do as you suggest.
Jesus.. your description of the PS3 reminds me programming assembler on my old C64. I thought it would have been a lot more high level these days, even when it comes to games.
Gender doesn't come into it. Very few of the people I've known throughout my life, male or female, have been what I'd call truly kind, generous, giving, altruistic people. Most people, all over the world, are generally fairly selfish. That doesn't have to be a value judgement either, it's just how human beings are. Very few of us see past our immediate concerns.