It's asking an awful lot of someone to learn Russian just so that he can read some of the literature for pleasure, don't you think?
At face value, of course...
However, if one were to learn Russian for the opportunity to read the lit. (SF or otherwise) it would likely turn out to be a most rewarding experience. You might think of it as a very challenging puzzle; Russian carries context in a way that most Engilsh speakers (the ones who'd notice) would find incredibly fascinating.
Does the effort required have much of an ROI? For a USian, probably not.
But it's one hell of a way to exercise your brain.
I know it's offtopic, but it's a new.sig, and I haven't nitpicked in a while...
The Russian word 'tsar' has a trailing magki-znak, IIRC - perhaps this should be reflected in the.sig?
Thanks for letting me share...
Re:comping with Photoshop and other inanities
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Many of the Web designers with >5yrs experience whom you'll meet generally:
know HTML and CSS
consider Jakob Nielsen to be a complete blowhard
The first is true because these folks have been around long enough to realize that Dreamweaver et. al. place too many limitations and create too many problems to be viable, in a design environment.
The second is true not because Nielsen gives bad advice, but because his conclusions are too broad and too strongly worded.
As for comping with Photoshop: I've been comping with Photoshop for four years. So do lots of other designers; the comping tools of choice are generally considered to be {raster gfx package | vector gfx package | pencil/paper } with many using two or even all three, since they do their own illustrations and drop the illustrations directly into the comp. The difference between the professional designer and the Junior VP is that the former is far more likely to know what's easy to markup, and what's not. This is generally reflected in the way people proceed through the site development process...
In Oregon at least it's not done; given the nature of corporate policy, I'd not be at all surprised to discover that it's contrary to regs for a station attendant to accept tips.
This is the second time this month I've read the question... I'll have to ask.
Re:Imperial vs. Metric: SERIOUSLY OFFTOPIC!
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alienmole says:
...and meters are just as arbitrary a unit as feet.
You see, that's the odd thing. The meter was not meant to be arbitrary at all, and in fact it forms the basis of the SI system (as I understand it).
The original measurement of the meter assumed that the Earth had a latitudinal circumference of 4e4km... problem was that the datum they were using was rather inaccurate. *chuckle*
For me, the motivation pointed more toward earth sciences (at one end) and mythology at the other (which eventually developed into fairly mature spirituality).
D&D sucked away a lot of my free-time when I was a young teenager, but more than just about anything else in my life at the time, it influenced me to ask why? and how? as such questions applied not only to the game, but to RL.
Of course, after all the money I spent on rulebooks (I still own the complete 1st Ed. set, the only 1st Ed. books I don't have are the Greyhawk and Realms sourcebooks), I figure I owe T$R/WoTCrack/Hasbro nothing.
I wouldn't say that the average person is "dumb", but more that the average person isn't aware of all that their computer and Internet connection can do for them because they haven't been exposed to these tools for their whole life. The next generation or so of computer users will have the experience to really make use of their tools, and if they think the benefits of Linux outweigh the time spent learning it, they'll easily make the switch.
Amen to that.
It's nice to finally see The Knowledgeable Users speak.
I'm reminded of what I so often say about the Macintosh: "it's the machine for people with lives."
Linux is the reverse of that, if you ask me. To me, this is a far thornier issue than the lack of support for hardware & software.
I do not want to spend two weeks of my free time milkfeeding a Linux box when I could just as easily be building a site that will enrich not only my life, but those of other people as well (if I do my job properly).
In the same vein, don't forget that there are boffins of all kinds (check the Geek Code)... but something many computer boffins forget is that ubiquitousness != universality.
Plants are everywhere, but how many people can keep up a vegetable or flower garden?
Most in the Western world have slept under or owned a handmade quilt or blanket at some point in their lives. How many of them could make a blanket of their own?
Do I need to discuss cars or music?
When Linux is a tool for getting things done easily, people will use it. As long as it remains a cryptic hobby, it will continue to exist underground (both literally and figuratively).
There are plenty here who will howl that Window$ is a POS... but Windows also has benefit of marketing and a user interface that is kludgy... but consistent. When I boot up a Windows program, I know that I will be able to find File (Preferences, Open, Close, Exit) and Edit menus, on a two- or three-nines basis. That by itself means a lot, even if it was ripped off from Apple and Xerox.
"From what little I know of russian, it has a very simple writing system that is even clearer and simpler than e.g. german, danish or norwegian."
This is actually more-or-less true... and within my experience the only language with easier rules of pronunciation is Spanish as spoken in Mexico and Central America.
It helps that Cyrillic denotes ten vowel sounds and a pseudo-vowel with ten characters (accounting for almost a third of the characters used).
One has to learn how stress falls in a word to know how to pronounce it properly, but there's a certain rhythm to that.
Where Russian kills is not with the pronunciation (once you've gotten used to it - Russian has a lot of sounds that English speakers are never taught to make) but with the grammar. It's not that there are a lot of exceptions, but rather that there are six cases (where German has three and Latin seven). There's also a lot of ambiguity where verbs are concerned, almost as bad as the ambiguities in English verb usage. The lack of articles (a/an/the) in Russian takes some getting used to, but inflection generally helps there.
My biggest gripe about Russian, though, has to do with prepositions. More on that if anybody asks.
Um, "me too" (applied to all of the other people who've been rebutting the "no Tom, Dick or Harries" comment).
Thanks to the romanticization of spaceflight, we're the victim of 1950's mindsets... the whole point to astronaut/cosmonaut training is to get the "best of the best" which means someone of superlative intelligence, education, and physical conditioning.
When you push the known limits of physiology, or you're doing bleeding-edge experiments in the sciences, these sorts of people are necessary.
A balmy day on the Jersey Shore will make it clear that such standards cannot be applied to the rigors of taking a holiday.
It's an interesting idea, but it doesn't really fly with me. Use a computer long enough, and you get used to a 104-key keyboard, fersure.
Despite my tender age of 26, I learned how to type on a manual typewriter... and there is a remnant of that in my style. I go through at least one keyboard a year.
The History Channel is running specials on WWII "this week"--how does this make it any different from any other week?
It's too bad they haven't made a movie yet with modern CGI that tells the story of Pearl Harbor from the Japanese side.
A good movie about the taking of Singapore would also be interesting to watch, if it was well-done.
"LGP is run by a mayor of some city in NY. This is not even his full time job. How many VC's can run a fund and a city at the same time. GET REAL."
Pfui - a statement like this displays massive ignorance. A lot of smaller municipalities in the US are run by their city managers while the mayor (who may not actually rank the city council) are the ones who serve as the interface between the worker bees and the business community. Even so, being elected doesn't necessarily mean that you have to work very hard at it... read up on accounts of the Commander-In-Chief's work ethic, if you're curious about that.
Pardon the off-topicness of this post... I'd just like to point out that the assumption that all politicians work at politics full-time, or that they actually govern, is incredibly naive.
At this point there's no competition per se in Portland, where telcos are concerned. Some areas are covered by Qwest, others by Verizon, and that's the name of the game.
In terms of coverage, there are huge swaths of town that can't get DSL or cable: most of Southeast, Hillsdale/Multnomah, Northeast close-in, and most of North Portland (go figure). If it was low rent ten-twelve years ago, or if it's low-rent now, you're probably outta luck. Nor do the telcos display interest in setting up new POP's... and Multnomah County is waaaaayyy behind the curve on cable because of the lawsuit that was filed here a few years ago.
To the poster who was wondering who bought Pacifier and Transport, I can say that the next-biggest fish is Northwest Link. I haven't really bothered to find out who owns them (if anybody) 'cause my service has actually been pretty good.
Of course, if you live in the States and don't want to deal with sales tax, move to Oregon or one of the other states that doesn't have one (I can't believe I'm saying this). The trade-off is that you'll have to pay higher income tax (9%, practically flat-rate in Oregon) and probably higher property taxes as well (end-of-quarter clearance sales can get pretty extreme).
When I travel out of state it's embarassing, 'cause I'll do a double take at the price paid, stop, and say, "I live in Oregon." The clerk will always smile and nod...
There is a learning curve associated with searching, but when everything is said and done the default boolean on a search is AND. If you're looking for something in particular - especially on Google - it helps to use lots of keywords.
For those of you who have clueless friends out there, I've been doing a Jargon of the Day feature in my Weblog: http://www.io.com/persist1/log.php... for those who need a gentle introduction.
Standards organizations are a scam. A (relatively) small group of people get together and say "This is the way it's going to be from now on." It's bullshit.
The alternative, of course, is to have a (relatively) small (corporate) group of people (Guess Who?) get together and say...
In the case of the Web Standards Project, we're talking about an org that's had a consistent level of support from developers since its inception. They're hardly a crackpot voice in the wilderness.
When you consider that the W3C includes people who've been driving the process from Day 1 (Berners-Lee, Raggett et. al.) it's just wrong to suggest that they're not relevant. Spew your accusations of empire-building all you like, but the fact remains that people have to be involved who are genuinely interested in doing the Right Thing, who will try to point innovation in directions that are actually worth a damn.
I've seen a lot of standards written, and rewritten, and rewritten, with never a fully-compliant implementation. No standards-body should ever release a standard without a fully-functional reference implementation...
That's what Amaya is for.
...otherwise, the natural ambiguity of human language will always leave doubts about what is and isn't compliant.
I've yet to understand how the W3C Technical Recommendations could be considered ambiguous. It is true that "Recommendation" is the highest weight they can get, but that's because the W3C acknowledges that it's a junior partner in the process to achieve standards-compliance. Which BTW brings us right back to where we started... enter the Web Standards Project.
Standards are mostly useful when everyone who is expected to follow them has a part in making them (i.e. such as if all memory manufacturers get together and agree to make standard interchangeable chips); this is impractical for something like the WWW.
When everything is said and done Web standards are about separation of style and content. It's hardly "impractical" to achieve this on the Web... I grant that it's virgin territory (because previous widely-used markup languages such as TeX and SGML did take presentation into account) but to say that it's impractical is to quit before you've really begun.
The W3C and to a lesser extent the Web Standards Project are pretty explicit about their goals, and the Nirvana they're trying to achieve is a separation of style and content. The need to support the chimerae of legacy clients is holding back the march toward this goal.
The WWW was defined by the first web-browsers.
You are correct - because the first browsers (primarily Netscape 1.1) were trying to answer the developer market. Right now the developer market is too busy trying to work within the constraints of backwards-compatible development to even think about innovation (for the most part).
There has, in fact, been no truly useful addition to HTML since the first few years of development. It has only had gobs of useless and annoying eye-candy piled on top of (obscuring and interfering with) the content and navigation.
...Because the W3C said "Holy Cow, this beast goes too far in supporting presentation. Let's work on other things like CSS and XML that we can use to support presentation..."
Every new browser worth mentioning still works with this original core functionality. This is the defacto standard
No, this is backwards-compatibility.
Defacto standards compliance:
-it works in every major version of IE and Netscape
Which would be a great thing if these browsers weren't broken in critical spots, if they had robust support across well-documented feature-sets... but they don't.
-you can navigate with images turned off
Which is the job of the designer, not the standard... and every competent designer knows this...
-it works with Java turned off
I'm with ya on this one...
-it works with Javascript turned off
This is more problematic, but not because of standards or developer petulance. Rather, clients demand client-side interactivity that doesn't exist when JavaScript is disabled. Flash is such a fad as a result of the same mindset.
it works in Lynx
...Which, if the browser implementations would allow developers to effectively separate presentation and content, would not be a problem.
It's not hard to make a web page that everybody can use. Avoiding all the new features will generally make a better, less frustrating interface, too.
In principle, you are absolutely correct. However, the refusal to support any whiz-bang at all results in rejected proposals. You have to sell a client before you can get a job. Unfortunately, selling clients means impressing them, and niether errors nor plain (i.e. Mosaic-style) pages impress no one.
That's the problem: it's very easy to write good HTML.
Again, you're absolutely right.
"Web designers" like to pretend that it's hard, that's what gives them a career.
This is a fucking troll, and I'm falling for the bait. I can't believe it.
HTML is NOT the only item in the toolkit of a competent "Web designer" (God, how I hate that title). A designer who bills hours also has a grasp on dynamic scripting, copywriting, graphic design, information architecture, JavaScript, etc. etc. They may not have all of these skills themselves, but they know how to work team-wise with people who do.
They sell flashy, expensive garbage that looks good to a manager viewing a local copy for the first five minutes. That's where the majority of the profit is, anyway.
Um, yeah. The last time I checked, that profit was what made our paychecks happen!
However, I'd like to point out too that there are plenty of designers who'll build the pants-creaming demo and then studiously nudge the client into approving a design that visitors will actually use. Happens all the time...
There's certainly a need for navigational interface designers...
They're called Information Architects and UI Architects, and those are coming into their own as recognized specialties in the Web-design/dev field.
...and back-end programmers...
Any Web-oriented Perl/PHP/ASP/Python programmer worth their paycheck who's still looking for work is either:
Not looking very hard
In the wrong market
Doesn't know how to make friends who'll point out where the jobs are
There are lots of people who want it on the server side, and aren't getting it because they can't find the people. Note also that once you've done your planning, server-side development doesn't involve nearly as many variables as client-side development...
but they hardly care about HTML features.
...Or anything having to do with presentation, really.
So let's turn the tables. Everybody use Lynx!
Whatever floats your boat, buddy.
The thing that gets me is that the vast majority of people who use Lynx, or disable JavaScript, know exactly what they're getting into... and still expect that things will be just as perfect for them, as they are for everyone else. Listen to the caveats, would you?
As for people who bitch because JavaScript is disabled at their job, I really have no sympathy for them. If they're visiting time-wasters at work, they need to make do. (Yes, I'm inferring that most sites that are heavy on JavaScript are in fact time-wasters. *grin*)
Conversely, designers who build sites meant to be accessed from a workplace who insist that JavaScript be enabled, deserve whatever crap they get too.
Cheers, everyone. See you later this week on alistapart.com.
This is the first step of the feds to regulate the computer industry. Their foot is now in the door.
I've never really seen that. What I see, is the government insisting that Microsoft (and the rest of the s/w industry) follow the same basic rules as the rest of the American business community. Or: to the extent that this gives the government a running start toward prohibiting Microsoft-like behavior in the future, maybe it does put their foot in the door.
Let's also not forget the large amount of money that large companies have been pouring into Linux. If say they make windozes free, or open the code up to everyone. Who will want to invest in Linux? We already have a hard enough time getting real top of the line apps like it is. Linux's biggest thing is that it works alot better than winblows, and it's free.
But, if Windows is completely opened, then Microsoft will have no incentive to invest in it, either. Bye-bye business plan! Besides, that doesn't change the fact that *x is still a better example of good s/w engineering.
Plus, why have companies been switching to Linux? Not because it runs cool apps, but because it's stable, because it's not at the mercy of what billg&co decide to do with their OS.
Linux has gained many new users over the past year. One common question I see in newsgroups is always about apps, and hardware support. We are just beginning to get companies to move in our direction for a choice. A free windoze might reverse that.
...Temporarily. I think that the mandating of exposure of Windows code at a low opportunity cost is the best way to go - it keeps M$ in the business, forces them make sincere efforts toward innovation, and opens up the market. Besides, who in the open source community would put as much heart into Windows, as they have into *x?
Breaking M$ up isn't going to solve anything. Opening it up would, but at the same time it would harm Linux as a whole a lot more. Will the feds tell Redhat what text editor they can include just because some company sells one?
Breaking up MS would in the long run do wonders for the economy, by dispersing talent throughout the industry (yes, Microsoft actually has some of that, hard as it may be to believe) to organizations that can make more-efficient use of it. It would annihilate the marketing tactics that Microsoft has used to such immense success, especially in this decade.
...And if Microsoft were broken up, Linux developers would be presented with a golden opportunity, 'cause they quickly be able to offer the most coherent product support. e.g. such a breakup would create a power vacuum which the *x community is presently best-positioned to fill.
There are two very important questions, though.
If Microsoft were broken up, how would the other titans (Compaq, IBM, and especially Intel) respond?
All I can say is, people will eventually have nightmares over the answers to this question.
If the *x community was suddenly handed this opportunity to fill a vacuum, would they be able to do it without squabbling themselves to death?
This is coming from somebody who's loss-of-virginity tale ultimately (toward the end) involves a MUD.
I've myself met five women IRL whom I first met online (and this over three years). So far, all of those have been washouts (though the most recent has a ghost's chance of turning into something decent). This doesn't count other the relationship that was carried on in no small part between the mailboxes of Yours Truly and my significant-ther-at-the-time.
When I examine my experiences, and those of other guys I know who have started relationships online, I come away under the impression that these women were looking for something unexpected - and often, panache (quite often in the sack, as part of the "ravished by someone I barely knew" approach) has had a lot of synonymosity with unexpectedness. D'oh!
Caveat emptor, baby.
If you want to have non-computer fun, chances are that anything goes (as long as you keep "NON-COMPUTER FUN" at the forefront of your mind). If you want a lasting partner (friend, confidante, significant other, lover) and you hope to find her online, spend A LOT of time at a distance when it comes to full-on romance - make friends, first.
At least, that's my opinion. Thanks for letting me share it with you...
I've been doing site UI and content for four years (more frenetically some times than others) and I've yet to develop on IIS (which in my market is a MEGA-liability), and when asked I recommend Linux/Apache (with the caveat that it can be hard to find an admin around here w/o paying absurd $$$ for the benefits). I'm actually kind of proud of that, most days.
I despize Windoze. But I use it because the hassle's bearable: "What, me worry when I all I have to do is reboot?" I hand-code my page source and for the time being, that's good enough for me. I'll have to delve into systems stuff soon enough, which means eating my advice (and that is why I'm finally putting/. on my daily must-visit list).
What makes my experience relevant? The fact that computers are TOOLS. We need reliable tools (if you have the resources, you'll buy a Mag-Lite over a dinky Chinese flashlight any day, right?) but we are reaching the point where discretion is the better part of valor. I don't need setup wizards, but I DO need setup procedures that are AT LEAST as easy as editing CONFIG.SYS - and that puts me in the minority amongst non-hackers. Most want simply to use their friggin' tools.
Would you prefer to buy a flashlight that you had to assemble from parts, load with an esoteric type of battery, that would burn out its bulb if you didn't turn it off before changing the batteries?
If your answer to that question was "yes" then I stand in awe of your masochism.
...Yet many of us (myself included) think nothing of exhibiting comparable masochism in regard to our servers and stations.
If on the other hand we want open-source software to succeed, we have to (ugh) follow the Web designer's mantra: "This site is being used by USERS." Not designers, not programmers, not MENSA members, not tinkerers by vocation, but USERS.
I can't support slavery to the rapid product cycle (which in my opinion, is ultimately a horrible folly)... but there definitely needs to be a reality check. A Geologically Stable Operating System (or Web Browser) is a noble goal, but it ain't worth a damn until it achieves some transparency. That will ultimately require compromises.
...So find a proactive way to make that compromise, instead of pulling some sort of apocalyptic attitude. The means to the end may be significant, but there has to be a genuine END for that statement to be valid. --BMH
Slashdot Mirror
At face value, of course...
However, if one were to learn Russian for the opportunity to read the lit. (SF or otherwise) it would likely turn out to be a most rewarding experience. You might think of it as a very challenging puzzle; Russian carries context in a way that most Engilsh speakers (the ones who'd notice) would find incredibly fascinating.
Does the effort required have much of an ROI? For a USian, probably not.
But it's one hell of a way to exercise your brain.
I know it's offtopic, but it's a new .sig, and I haven't nitpicked in a while...
The Russian word 'tsar' has a trailing magki-znak, IIRC - perhaps this should be reflected in the .sig?
Thanks for letting me share...
Many of the Web designers with >5yrs experience whom you'll meet generally:
know HTML and CSS
consider Jakob Nielsen to be a complete blowhard
The first is true because these folks have been around long enough to realize that Dreamweaver et. al. place too many limitations and create too many problems to be viable, in a design environment.
The second is true not because Nielsen gives bad advice, but because his conclusions are too broad and too strongly worded.
As for comping with Photoshop: I've been comping with Photoshop for four years. So do lots of other designers; the comping tools of choice are generally considered to be {raster gfx package | vector gfx package | pencil/paper } with many using two or even all three, since they do their own illustrations and drop the illustrations directly into the comp. The difference between the professional designer and the Junior VP is that the former is far more likely to know what's easy to markup, and what's not. This is generally reflected in the way people proceed through the site development process...
In Oregon at least it's not done; given the nature of corporate policy, I'd not be at all surprised to discover that it's contrary to regs for a station attendant to accept tips.
This is the second time this month I've read the question... I'll have to ask.
alienmole says:
You see, that's the odd thing. The meter was not meant to be arbitrary at all, and in fact it forms the basis of the SI system (as I understand it).
The original measurement of the meter assumed that the Earth had a latitudinal circumference of 4e4km... problem was that the datum they were using was rather inaccurate. *chuckle*
For me, the motivation pointed more toward earth sciences (at one end) and mythology at the other (which eventually developed into fairly mature spirituality).
D&D sucked away a lot of my free-time when I was a young teenager, but more than just about anything else in my life at the time, it influenced me to ask why? and how? as such questions applied not only to the game, but to RL.
Of course, after all the money I spent on rulebooks (I still own the complete 1st Ed. set, the only 1st Ed. books I don't have are the Greyhawk and Realms sourcebooks), I figure I owe T$R/WoTCrack/Hasbro nothing.
Yes, for me it was huge.
ethereal said:
Amen to that.
It's nice to finally see The Knowledgeable Users speak.
I'm reminded of what I so often say about the Macintosh: "it's the machine for people with lives."
Linux is the reverse of that, if you ask me. To me, this is a far thornier issue than the lack of support for hardware & software.
I do not want to spend two weeks of my free time milkfeeding a Linux box when I could just as easily be building a site that will enrich not only my life, but those of other people as well (if I do my job properly).
In the same vein, don't forget that there are boffins of all kinds (check the Geek Code)... but something many computer boffins forget is that ubiquitousness != universality.
Plants are everywhere, but how many people can keep up a vegetable or flower garden?
Most in the Western world have slept under or owned a handmade quilt or blanket at some point in their lives. How many of them could make a blanket of their own?
Do I need to discuss cars or music?
When Linux is a tool for getting things done easily, people will use it. As long as it remains a cryptic hobby, it will continue to exist underground (both literally and figuratively).
There are plenty here who will howl that Window$ is a POS... but Windows also has benefit of marketing and a user interface that is kludgy... but consistent. When I boot up a Windows program, I know that I will be able to find File (Preferences, Open, Close, Exit) and Edit menus, on a two- or three-nines basis. That by itself means a lot, even if it was ripped off from Apple and Xerox.
This is actually more-or-less true... and within my experience the only language with easier rules of pronunciation is Spanish as spoken in Mexico and Central America.
It helps that Cyrillic denotes ten vowel sounds and a pseudo-vowel with ten characters (accounting for almost a third of the characters used).
One has to learn how stress falls in a word to know how to pronounce it properly, but there's a certain rhythm to that.
Where Russian kills is not with the pronunciation (once you've gotten used to it - Russian has a lot of sounds that English speakers are never taught to make) but with the grammar. It's not that there are a lot of exceptions, but rather that there are six cases (where German has three and Latin seven). There's also a lot of ambiguity where verbs are concerned, almost as bad as the ambiguities in English verb usage. The lack of articles (a/an/the) in Russian takes some getting used to, but inflection generally helps there.
My biggest gripe about Russian, though, has to do with prepositions. More on that if anybody asks.
Um, "me too" (applied to all of the other people who've been rebutting the "no Tom, Dick or Harries" comment).
Thanks to the romanticization of spaceflight, we're the victim of 1950's mindsets... the whole point to astronaut/cosmonaut training is to get the "best of the best" which means someone of superlative intelligence, education, and physical conditioning.
When you push the known limits of physiology, or you're doing bleeding-edge experiments in the sciences, these sorts of people are necessary.
A balmy day on the Jersey Shore will make it clear that such standards cannot be applied to the rigors of taking a holiday.
It's an interesting idea, but it doesn't really fly with me. Use a computer long enough, and you get used to a 104-key keyboard, fersure.
Despite my tender age of 26, I learned how to type on a manual typewriter... and there is a remnant of that in my style. I go through at least one keyboard a year.
The History Channel is running specials on WWII "this week"--how does this make it any different from any other week?
It's too bad they haven't made a movie yet with modern CGI that tells the story of Pearl Harbor from the Japanese side.
A good movie about the taking of Singapore would also be interesting to watch, if it was well-done.
Anonymous Coward says:
Pfui - a statement like this displays massive ignorance. A lot of smaller municipalities in the US are run by their city managers while the mayor (who may not actually rank the city council) are the ones who serve as the interface between the worker bees and the business community. Even so, being elected doesn't necessarily mean that you have to work very hard at it... read up on accounts of the Commander-In-Chief's work ethic, if you're curious about that.
Pardon the off-topicness of this post... I'd just like to point out that the assumption that all politicians work at politics full-time, or that they actually govern, is incredibly naive.
Someone agrees with your sentiment:
http://www.ironminds.com/ironminds/issues/010319/c afe.shtml
At this point there's no competition per se in Portland, where telcos are concerned. Some areas are covered by Qwest, others by Verizon, and that's the name of the game.
In terms of coverage, there are huge swaths of town that can't get DSL or cable: most of Southeast, Hillsdale/Multnomah, Northeast close-in, and most of North Portland (go figure). If it was low rent ten-twelve years ago, or if it's low-rent now, you're probably outta luck. Nor do the telcos display interest in setting up new POP's... and Multnomah County is waaaaayyy behind the curve on cable because of the lawsuit that was filed here a few years ago.
To the poster who was wondering who bought Pacifier and Transport, I can say that the next-biggest fish is Northwest Link. I haven't really bothered to find out who owns them (if anybody) 'cause my service has actually been pretty good.
Of course, if you live in the States and don't want to deal with sales tax, move to Oregon or one of the other states that doesn't have one (I can't believe I'm saying this). The trade-off is that you'll have to pay higher income tax (9%, practically flat-rate in Oregon) and probably higher property taxes as well (end-of-quarter clearance sales can get pretty extreme).
When I travel out of state it's embarassing, 'cause I'll do a double take at the price paid, stop, and say, "I live in Oregon." The clerk will always smile and nod...
Muahahahaha... I second this sentiment.
There is a learning curve associated with searching, but when everything is said and done the default boolean on a search is AND. If you're looking for something in particular - especially on Google - it helps to use lots of keywords.
For those of you who have clueless friends out there, I've been doing a Jargon of the Day feature in my Weblog: http://www.io.com/persist1/log.php... for those who need a gentle introduction.
The alternative, of course, is to have a (relatively) small (corporate) group of people (Guess Who?) get together and say...
In the case of the Web Standards Project, we're talking about an org that's had a consistent level of support from developers since its inception. They're hardly a crackpot voice in the wilderness.
When you consider that the W3C includes people who've been driving the process from Day 1 (Berners-Lee, Raggett et. al.) it's just wrong to suggest that they're not relevant. Spew your accusations of empire-building all you like, but the fact remains that people have to be involved who are genuinely interested in doing the Right Thing, who will try to point innovation in directions that are actually worth a damn.
That's what Amaya is for.
I've yet to understand how the W3C Technical Recommendations could be considered ambiguous. It is true that "Recommendation" is the highest weight they can get, but that's because the W3C acknowledges that it's a junior partner in the process to achieve standards-compliance. Which BTW brings us right back to where we started... enter the Web Standards Project.
When everything is said and done Web standards are about separation of style and content. It's hardly "impractical" to achieve this on the Web... I grant that it's virgin territory (because previous widely-used markup languages such as TeX and SGML did take presentation into account) but to say that it's impractical is to quit before you've really begun.
The W3C and to a lesser extent the Web Standards Project are pretty explicit about their goals, and the Nirvana they're trying to achieve is a separation of style and content. The need to support the chimerae of legacy clients is holding back the march toward this goal.
You are correct - because the first browsers (primarily Netscape 1.1) were trying to answer the developer market. Right now the developer market is too busy trying to work within the constraints of backwards-compatible development to even think about innovation (for the most part).
...Because the W3C said "Holy Cow, this beast goes too far in supporting presentation. Let's work on other things like CSS and XML that we can use to support presentation..."
No, this is backwards-compatibility.
Which would be a great thing if these browsers weren't broken in critical spots, if they had robust support across well-documented feature-sets... but they don't.
Which is the job of the designer, not the standard... and every competent designer knows this...
I'm with ya on this one...
This is more problematic, but not because of standards or developer petulance. Rather, clients demand client-side interactivity that doesn't exist when JavaScript is disabled. Flash is such a fad as a result of the same mindset.
...Which, if the browser implementations would allow developers to effectively separate presentation and content, would not be a problem.
In principle, you are absolutely correct. However, the refusal to support any whiz-bang at all results in rejected proposals. You have to sell a client before you can get a job. Unfortunately, selling clients means impressing them, and niether errors nor plain (i.e. Mosaic-style) pages impress no one.
Again, you're absolutely right.
This is a fucking troll, and I'm falling for the bait. I can't believe it.
HTML is NOT the only item in the toolkit of a competent "Web designer" (God, how I hate that title). A designer who bills hours also has a grasp on dynamic scripting, copywriting, graphic design, information architecture, JavaScript, etc. etc. They may not have all of these skills themselves, but they know how to work team-wise with people who do.
Um, yeah. The last time I checked, that profit was what made our paychecks happen!
However, I'd like to point out too that there are plenty of designers who'll build the pants-creaming demo and then studiously nudge the client into approving a design that visitors will actually use. Happens all the time...
They're called Information Architects and UI Architects, and those are coming into their own as recognized specialties in the Web-design/dev field.
Any Web-oriented Perl/PHP/ASP/Python programmer worth their paycheck who's still looking for work is either:
There are lots of people who want it on the server side, and aren't getting it because they can't find the people. Note also that once you've done your planning, server-side development doesn't involve nearly as many variables as client-side development...
...Or anything having to do with presentation, really.
Whatever floats your boat, buddy.
The thing that gets me is that the vast majority of people who use Lynx, or disable JavaScript, know exactly what they're getting into... and still expect that things will be just as perfect for them, as they are for everyone else. Listen to the caveats, would you?
As for people who bitch because JavaScript is disabled at their job, I really have no sympathy for them. If they're visiting time-wasters at work, they need to make do. (Yes, I'm inferring that most sites that are heavy on JavaScript are in fact time-wasters. *grin*)
Conversely, designers who build sites meant to be accessed from a workplace who insist that JavaScript be enabled, deserve whatever crap they get too.
Cheers, everyone. See you later this week on alistapart.com.
This is the first step of the feds to regulate the computer industry. Their foot is now in the door.
I've never really seen that. What I see, is the government insisting that Microsoft (and the rest of the s/w industry) follow the same basic rules as the rest of the American business community. Or: to the extent that this gives the government a running start toward prohibiting Microsoft-like behavior in the future, maybe it does put their foot in the door.
Let's also not forget the large amount of money that large companies have been pouring into Linux. If say they make windozes free, or open the code up to everyone. Who will want to invest in Linux? We already have a hard enough time getting real top of the line apps like it is. Linux's biggest thing is that it works alot better than winblows, and it's free.
But, if Windows is completely opened, then Microsoft will have no incentive to invest in it, either. Bye-bye business plan! Besides, that doesn't change the fact that *x is still a better example of good s/w engineering.
Plus, why have companies been switching to Linux? Not because it runs cool apps, but because it's stable, because it's not at the mercy of what billg&co decide to do with their OS.
Linux has gained many new users over the past year. One common question I see in newsgroups is always about apps, and hardware support. We are just beginning to get companies to move in our direction for a choice. A free windoze might reverse that.
Breaking M$ up isn't going to solve anything. Opening it up would, but at the same time it would harm Linux as a whole a lot more. Will the feds tell Redhat what text editor they can include just because some company sells one?
Breaking up MS would in the long run do wonders for the economy, by dispersing talent throughout the industry (yes, Microsoft actually has some of that, hard as it may be to believe) to organizations that can make more-efficient use of it. It would annihilate the marketing tactics that Microsoft has used to such immense success, especially in this decade.
...And if Microsoft were broken up, Linux developers would be presented with a golden opportunity, 'cause they quickly be able to offer the most coherent product support. e.g. such a breakup would create a power vacuum which the *x community is presently best-positioned to fill.
There are two very important questions, though.
All I can say is, people will eventually have nightmares over the answers to this question.
I certainly hope not.
This is coming from somebody who's loss-of-virginity tale ultimately (toward the end) involves a MUD.
I've myself met five women IRL whom I first met online (and this over three years). So far, all of those have been washouts (though the most recent has a ghost's chance of turning into something decent). This doesn't count other the relationship that was carried on in no small part between the mailboxes of Yours Truly and my significant-ther-at-the-time.
When I examine my experiences, and those of other guys I know who have started relationships online, I come away under the impression that these women were looking for something unexpected - and often, panache (quite often in the sack, as part of the "ravished by someone I barely knew" approach) has had a lot of synonymosity with unexpectedness. D'oh!
Caveat emptor, baby.
If you want to have non-computer fun, chances are that anything goes (as long as you keep "NON-COMPUTER FUN" at the forefront of your mind). If you want a lasting partner (friend, confidante, significant other, lover) and you hope to find her online, spend A LOT of time at a distance when it comes to full-on romance - make friends, first.
At least, that's my opinion. Thanks for letting me share it with you...
I've been doing site UI and content for four years (more frenetically some times than others) and I've yet to develop on IIS (which in my market is a MEGA-liability), and when asked I recommend Linux/Apache (with the caveat that it can be hard to find an admin around here w/o paying absurd $$$ for the benefits). I'm actually kind of proud of that, most days.
/. on my daily must-visit list).
I despize Windoze. But I use it because the hassle's bearable: "What, me worry when I all I have to do is reboot?" I hand-code my page source and for the time being, that's good enough for me. I'll have to delve into systems stuff soon enough, which means eating my advice (and that is why I'm finally putting
What makes my experience relevant? The fact that computers are TOOLS. We need reliable tools (if you have the resources, you'll buy a Mag-Lite over a dinky Chinese flashlight any day, right?) but we are reaching the point where discretion is the better part of valor. I don't need setup wizards, but I DO need setup procedures that are AT LEAST as easy as editing CONFIG.SYS - and that puts me in the minority amongst non-hackers. Most want simply to use their friggin' tools.
Would you prefer to buy a flashlight that you had to assemble from parts, load with an esoteric type of battery, that would burn out its bulb if you didn't turn it off before changing the batteries?
If your answer to that question was "yes" then I stand in awe of your masochism.
...Yet many of us (myself included) think nothing of exhibiting comparable masochism in regard to our servers and stations.
If on the other hand we want open-source software to succeed, we have to (ugh) follow the Web designer's mantra: "This site is being used by USERS." Not designers, not programmers, not MENSA members, not tinkerers by vocation, but USERS.
I can't support slavery to the rapid product cycle (which in my opinion, is ultimately a horrible folly)... but there definitely needs to be a reality check. A Geologically Stable Operating System (or Web Browser) is a noble goal, but it ain't worth a damn until it achieves some transparency. That will ultimately require compromises.
...So find a proactive way to make that compromise, instead of pulling some sort of apocalyptic attitude. The means to the end may be significant, but there has to be a genuine END for that statement to be valid. --BMH