Skinny Puppy is known for their Industrial Alternative, not "Electronic" --- they aren't a hipster Dance band.
Slashdot Beta is Trash. So was Skinny Puppy pretty much since 1992 (after Too Dark Park). But they have realized the Error of Their Ways and have returned to 1984. So now the 100,000 dollar question: Can Slashdot's caretakers realize the Error of Their Ways before it is too late?
Anyone recall Arstechnica's major design change about 4 years ago? Nope me neither. Know why? When they did it, they left the OLD design available to use. Two settings exist to this day for Colour: Dark on Light, or Light on Dark; as well as a setting for layout. I wonder if maybe, just maybe its not such a boneheaded thing to do --- to give users a choice and stop being such a bunch of pricks.
Because "Web Developers" can't code, since they don't use the Holy C.
Of course one might also consider that "Web Developers" might actually be able to code better than those that "strive for all that is good about coding" since they have to deal with the bullshit that is HTML+CSS and get work done:-)
My favorite usage of C was LPC via DGD. A technically interpreted "Object" C language. It was very elegant compared to many languages that were "invented" to run crap with html. I always felt it was a downright shame that DGD/LPC didn't find that niche. I don't think there would of been a need for JavaScript, PHP, and possibly many other languages that were created (primarily) to deal with HTML.
dakira > TruthNow â 3 days ago
Wow. They took a piece of cross-platform software and made it stop working on Linux by applying their skin. That's just sad.
CrashNBurn71 > dakira â 3 days ago
Or you know, instead of the past year of this nonsense, Opera DESKTOP could of used WebKit/Blink to render the page, and kept Presto to render the Opera UI. It would of been more memory intensive, but at least it would of been a usable browser.
A thread for every single open Tab is beyond ludicrous. A thread for every window *maybe*.
Opera 15+ is worse than MS Office + the Ribbon:: at least Office still has the same functionality - even if it takes twice as long to get there.
Why anyone is bothering with Opera any longer is beyond me. A year later there's not even a hint of a customizable interface or the Side-Panel. M2 has been flat out abandoned, not a single update since it was split into its own "App".
With.net or WinForms or any of Microsoft's Software Development Kits, or even __Autohotkey__ you could layout a Window with customizable/resizable sections in a day.
Other Browsers have a handful of developers or less, and are blowing Opera out of the water. (See Maxthon or Slepnir -- the whole Fenrir Inc only has 50-200 employees.)
(*) And yeah some of us actually do Software Development beyond throwing a couple webpages onto the internet, and actually know what CAN be accomplished in a day or a month or a year.
No bookmarks in a year? Opera doesn't want to add bookmarks. Or it would of been done in a week, maybe a month. Its not f'n rocket science.
Many? long-time Opera users would likely agree that Opera was quite possibly one of the top 10 software products ever.
quite possibly one of the top 10 software products ever.
(*) Chopera defenders (and the Dev's themselves) on the blog frequently spout about how software development takes time... as the excuse for why almost none of Opera's old functionality has made its way into the new Chrome "clone".
clone - implies something that is a copy of its "parent"... except Chopera isn't even close to a clone, not only is it missing nearly everything that made Opera useful, it's missing most of what Chromium has as well.
99% of the time that Opera wouldn't work on a given site, choosing "Mask as Firefox" or "Mask as IE" would resolve the issue --- as it was almost always caused by browser sniffing and giving the wrong JS/HTML for Opera to render.
In a few odd cases, it was a failure of Opera's JS engine and masking as FF/IE would not actually resolve the problem.
This was on arstechnica last week. A number of people grabbed onto the "nearly identical" phrasing then too. Except the wording of the contract was something close to: royalties for any "derivative works". Whether the games were identical is irrelevant, and disingenuous of the judge to use the "virtually identical" phrasing as a basis for throwing out the juries verdict.
How is it random. I always get beta.slashdot, unless I log-in. Then since I have preferences set to no-javascript - I get regular slashdot.
If slashdot forces that on its users, I'm pretty sure it will cause a significant exodus.
I couldn't even find the login on my laptop, turns out the whole top menu, except for the slashdot logo, disappears if your browser isn't almost full-screen.
GURPS only problem that I know of, is the whole system pretty much falls apart when/if your Character gets 16+ in a prime stat. That, and perhaps there is enough evidence that a few more primary attributes would help the system.
So likely not that difficult to fix the main problems GURPS has - leave the reliance on 3d6 rolls to another feat/resistance roll type system, and consider how a couple (2/3/4?) more Primary Attributes could be worked into the existing skill system.
"Touch" would be pretty easy to emulate with a mouse - it would actually be better than actual touch.
If Right-Click turns the mouse pointer to a "Hand" grabber: now moving the mouse left/right is the same as "touching the screen and dragging in a given direction".
There is absolutely nothing that "touch" brings to the table that can't already be done with the tools we have: mouse, keyboard, and touch-pads/touch-pad mice. It's also only about 3 clicks to change the "Start-Screen" to an Apps-Screen... except its an either/or proposition. All-in-all it makes very little sense that we cannot set hotkeys or toolbar-buttons to actions like bringing up "normal-start-screen" or "apps-only" or "a folder with modern-layout/view."
After all this time how is it that Microsoft doesn't "get" that customization of the interface is what makes MS different from everyone else.
Instead we wind up with Windows 8, and Aero -- which many consider as the logical upgrade from the Win2K/98 look, as opposed to the Fisher-Price look of XP -- ripped out by its roots, instead of an option to the flat bland crap appearance of Win8.
Not only does Win8 go off on it's on tangent in a number of respects, but it does away with concrete tangible concepts that Microsoft has iterated over since Windows 3.
I'm sure everyone recalls the basic theming ability to choose 2 colors for the title bar, and have it blend. Win 8 takes that concept and shits on it. Text is flat, Title-bar background are bland, flat, shapeless non-dimensional pastel colours. I think if the dev's had of tripped out on acid we would of wound up with something better than the utter-disregard for users in Windows 8.
Although I did buy a used Samsung S2, so I can play around with Android programming and have a real phone to test it on... but, it doesn't actually have a SIM card in it (although I can internet browse via my wireless router). I could pop the SIM from my Nokia in it (tried it, works fine), but I don't really *want* a "smart" phone (funny, most of the people I know with "smart" phones spend most of their day stupidly staring into the phone, texting, etc, rather than actually experiencing the real world around them).
*chuckle* That seems to be the general consensus.
I got a refurb samsung as a music player to replace an aging Sansa. Unfortunately, I probably still have to get a Sansa.
If you accidentally leave wi-fi on --- even if the device is in limbo - on/screen off - hasn't been used in hours... the battery dies in 12 hours or less.
Whereas an actual MP3 player will last months on a single charge if its only used sparingly. (Or 30-50 hrs continuous play.)
Robert J. Sawyer had a series 10+ years back now:
The trilogy's volumes are titled Hominids (published 2002), Humans (2003), and Hybrids (2003).
Very interesting take on what the modern world would likely consider "socialist". Some of the "tasks" people (neanderthals) had was to be an exhibitionist. They would wander around interesting places and be akin to a talk-show host as such - given that their "job" was basically exhibitionist, their live-monitor-feed was always on 100%.
That's how it was in Canada at least back before broadband was the necessary choice. Even in the "little" towns there were dozens of Dial-Up providers. All of those were bought-out or went tits-up as we headed into the early/mid 2000's. I imagine it was similiar in the States in the 90's, whereas in the mid/late 80's you pretty much needed to have a university account to access outside of the BBS-scene.
Not correct, we have an iMac that's about 6 years old, and a MacPro Core2Duo (x64) from early 2007.
Neither can upgrade past Lion. And if we upgrade those machines past Snow Leopard, all the Adobe software needs to be repurchased - architechture change - will not run on Lion or beyond.
Now compare that to my PC-Desktop/Workstation, since 2005 (it's original build) I've changed the CPU and Motherboard once (plus replacements of the mobo upgrade due to failures), added Ram twice: switched to 8GB (2x4GB) for ~$80, then added 16GB on a crazy tiger-direct sale last year ~$90 (delivery took 4 weeks).
Original cost of the first 2005 build, including monitor, ~$800. Plus upgrades (including newer HD's) $500.
My PC started with Win2K in 2005, Win7 in 2011-2012, and Win8 for $30 last year.
Year-in-year-out the non-Mac PC can be kept up to date for linux or Windows with minimal upgrades that really don't cost that much. Whereas Mac propositions are almost always replacing the machine completely at a nearly unreasonable cost.
I was trying to do a "Hangout" with my mother, as it allows screen-sharing and the ability to take control of the other user's machine -- which has allowed me to move forward with our weekly computer training sessions.
Likewise google didn't like my name -- real name only... I was able to finally push my registration of Google+ through with the "name" Crash N. Burn:-)
Then there's those of us that have had a Belkin router for years with no issue. After Cisco acquired Linksys what was there available for the home market - that didn't suck... D-Link? Maybe, but you couldn't with confidence buy a D-Link router and know that it would be relatively trouble-free.
Netgear for instance, might be a decent model or might be complete trash. I've had fairly good runs with a few different TP-Link models and Belkin - compared to all of the non-WR54G Linksys models and D-Links that have just crapped out entirely shortly after the warranty expired. Or when we had 2 routers D-link/Linksys that had to alternately be used as they would both overheat and stop routing.
Obama has been targetting smokers since the beginning. He is an "ex"-smoker, you see so everyone should quit.
When I moved to the states a few years back now, I smoked Djarum. Two months before I moved, Obama + Phillip Morris (Marlboro I believe) Lobbied to ban "flavoured" cigarettes, well except for menthol. The legislation isn't supposed to make sense, it's just supposed to make money.
Phillip Morris with Obama's assistance got all flavoured cigarettes banned in the states. Then Phillip Morris after basically killing the market for many companies in the states (Clove cigarettes, etc) began selling "clove" Marlboro's to indonesia and other Indo-European countries.
Not that Canada is all that much better, they tax cigarettes about 200%. But at least you can still buy them if you feel like it.
Now if you've seen Djarum or other "flavoured" brands in the last 3+ years. They got around the ban by renaming them "Cigarello's" using cigar paper (thicker) and increasing the diameter by about an 1/8 of an inch or so.
The interesting thing with Windows --- change under the hood (non-forward facing core changes) has almost always been improvements; minus the f-up in Vista with file-copy priority scheduling. Whereas forward facing (GUI/interface) has mostly been superfluous. E.g. it looks different but functions about the same or better.
Microsoft threw that idea out with Windows 8: core changes were good, but the forward facing GUI/Interface was a drastic change that looks different and functions about the same or WORSE. It's likely this started to creep in with Vista onwards, along with the Ribbon-mentality.
The other problem(s) are most noticeable when you do a jump like I did, from Win2000 to Win7, Office2000 to Office2013, etc. Compared to a "normal" customizable toolbar, Ribbons are less flexible, take up more real-estate and usually require more clicks to get the same task accomplished than before.
Where things haven't really changed, it's business as usual --- yet where it has changed, it's almost always worse. Every time I need to uninstall a program my brain does a disconnect trying to locate the "Uninstall" button in "Programs and Features"... not a button anymore just a piece of unadorned text above the 'file-list'. Same thing with NewFolder in Explorer or the Open/Save dialog.
The tax rate in Canada and the US is fairly similiar, even for lower salaries (slightly above minimum wage), it's near 20-30%. Middle-Class hovers in the 33% bracket (give or take a few %), and when you start to get into upper-class ranges your tax rate decreases. Income tax in North America (dunno about mexico) is heavily weighted against those that make the least.
Coke/New Coke was planned. Coca Cola flooded the market with New Coke, after less than a year they brought "Coca-Cola Classic" back --- except in America it wasn't Coca Cola Classic... it was Coca Cola Classic with HFCS instead of sugar. Unlike Canada and Mexico and probably everywhere else in the world where Coke is actually made with sugar.
While there is a lot to bitch about IE over the years, a lot of the workarounds that you see floating around the web can be made redundant and unnecessary by using "Strict" html which prevents IE from rendering into compatibility mode.
Also it's quite interesting to see where the HTML spec has headed with the display property --- see inline-flex, flex, and flex-box.
One thing MS actually got right - and should of been the standard from the beginning is:
Padding & Margins were included in an elements size (width and height).
It is a complete pain in the ass trying to position elements in HTML when something like this:
is actually 630px wide...and to get an actual 600px width (total) you need to make the div be 570px since the element does NOT include layout spacing in the height/width settings. That aspect of HTML is nothing short of ass-backwards.
Slashdot Mirror
Slashdot's next step, replace the commenting system with Disqus. Oh yeah, good times.
Skinny Puppy is known for their Industrial Alternative, not "Electronic" --- they aren't a hipster Dance band.
Slashdot Beta is Trash. So was Skinny Puppy pretty much since 1992 (after Too Dark Park). But they have realized the Error of Their Ways and have returned to 1984. So now the 100,000 dollar question: Can Slashdot's caretakers realize the Error of Their Ways before it is too late?
Anyone recall Arstechnica's major design change about 4 years ago? Nope me neither. Know why? When they did it, they left the OLD design available to use. Two settings exist to this day for Colour: Dark on Light, or Light on Dark; as well as a setting for layout. I wonder if maybe, just maybe its not such a boneheaded thing to do --- to give users a choice and stop being such a bunch of pricks.
Because "Web Developers" can't code, since they don't use the Holy C.
:-)
Of course one might also consider that "Web Developers" might actually be able to code better than those that "strive for all that is good about coding" since they have to deal with the bullshit that is HTML+CSS and get work done
My favorite usage of C was LPC via DGD. A technically interpreted "Object" C language. It was very elegant compared to many languages that were "invented" to run crap with html. I always felt it was a downright shame that DGD/LPC didn't find that niche. I don't think there would of been a need for JavaScript, PHP, and possibly many other languages that were created (primarily) to deal with HTML.
http://blogs.opera.com/desktop...
CrashNBurn71 > dakira â 3 days ago
:: at least Office still has the same functionality - even if it takes twice as long to get there.
.net or WinForms or any of Microsoft's Software Development Kits, or even __Autohotkey__ you could layout a Window with customizable/resizable sections in a day.
Or you know, instead of the past year of this nonsense, Opera DESKTOP could of used WebKit/Blink to render the page, and kept Presto to render the Opera UI. It would of been more memory intensive, but at least it would of been a usable browser.
A thread for every single open Tab is beyond ludicrous. A thread for every window *maybe*.
Opera 15+ is worse than MS Office + the Ribbon
Why anyone is bothering with Opera any longer is beyond me. A year later there's not even a hint of a customizable interface or the Side-Panel. M2 has been flat out abandoned, not a single update since it was split into its own "App".
With
Other Browsers have a handful of developers or less, and are blowing Opera out of the water. (See Maxthon or Slepnir -- the whole Fenrir Inc only has 50-200 employees.)
(*) And yeah some of us actually do Software Development beyond throwing a couple webpages onto the internet, and actually know what CAN be accomplished in a day or a month or a year.
No bookmarks in a year? Opera doesn't want to add bookmarks. Or it would of been done in a week, maybe a month. Its not f'n rocket science.
Many? long-time Opera users would likely agree that Opera was quite possibly one of the top 10 software products ever. quite possibly one of the top 10 software products ever.
(*) Chopera defenders (and the Dev's themselves) on the blog frequently spout about how software development takes time... as the excuse for why almost none of Opera's old functionality has made its way into the new Chrome "clone".
... except Chopera isn't even close to a clone, not only is it missing nearly everything that made Opera useful, it's missing most of what Chromium has as well.
clone - implies something that is a copy of its "parent"
They have a new mission, Opera ASA is primarily an AD and services company. The browser is a side business.
99% of the time that Opera wouldn't work on a given site, choosing "Mask as Firefox" or "Mask as IE" would resolve the issue --- as it was almost always caused by browser sniffing and giving the wrong JS/HTML for Opera to render.
In a few odd cases, it was a failure of Opera's JS engine and masking as FF/IE would not actually resolve the problem.
This was on arstechnica last week. A number of people grabbed onto the "nearly identical" phrasing then too. Except the wording of the contract was something close to: royalties for any "derivative works". Whether the games were identical is irrelevant, and disingenuous of the judge to use the "virtually identical" phrasing as a basis for throwing out the juries verdict.
How is it random. I always get beta.slashdot, unless I log-in. Then since I have preferences set to no-javascript - I get regular slashdot.
If slashdot forces that on its users, I'm pretty sure it will cause a significant exodus.
I couldn't even find the login on my laptop, turns out the whole top menu, except for the slashdot logo, disappears if your browser isn't almost full-screen.
GURPS only problem that I know of, is the whole system pretty much falls apart when/if your Character gets 16+ in a prime stat. That, and perhaps there is enough evidence that a few more primary attributes would help the system.
So likely not that difficult to fix the main problems GURPS has - leave the reliance on 3d6 rolls to another feat/resistance roll type system, and consider how a couple (2/3/4?) more Primary Attributes could be worked into the existing skill system.
"Touch" would be pretty easy to emulate with a mouse - it would actually be better than actual touch.
If Right-Click turns the mouse pointer to a "Hand" grabber: now moving the mouse left/right is the same as "touching the screen and dragging in a given direction".
There is absolutely nothing that "touch" brings to the table that can't already be done with the tools we have: mouse, keyboard, and touch-pads/touch-pad mice. It's also only about 3 clicks to change the "Start-Screen" to an Apps-Screen... except its an either/or proposition. All-in-all it makes very little sense that we cannot set hotkeys or toolbar-buttons to actions like bringing up "normal-start-screen" or "apps-only" or "a folder with modern-layout/view."
After all this time how is it that Microsoft doesn't "get" that customization of the interface is what makes MS different from everyone else.
Instead we wind up with Windows 8, and Aero -- which many consider as the logical upgrade from the Win2K/98 look, as opposed to the Fisher-Price look of XP -- ripped out by its roots, instead of an option to the flat bland crap appearance of Win8.
Not only does Win8 go off on it's on tangent in a number of respects, but it does away with concrete tangible concepts that Microsoft has iterated over since Windows 3.
I'm sure everyone recalls the basic theming ability to choose 2 colors for the title bar, and have it blend. Win 8 takes that concept and shits on it. Text is flat, Title-bar background are bland, flat, shapeless non-dimensional pastel colours. I think if the dev's had of tripped out on acid we would of wound up with something better than the utter-disregard for users in Windows 8.
*chuckle* That seems to be the general consensus.
I got a refurb samsung as a music player to replace an aging Sansa. Unfortunately, I probably still have to get a Sansa.
Whereas an actual MP3 player will last months on a single charge if its only used sparingly. (Or 30-50 hrs continuous play.)
Robert J. Sawyer had a series 10+ years back now:
The trilogy's volumes are titled Hominids (published 2002), Humans (2003), and Hybrids (2003).
Very interesting take on what the modern world would likely consider "socialist". Some of the "tasks" people (neanderthals) had was to be an exhibitionist. They would wander around interesting places and be akin to a talk-show host as such - given that their "job" was basically exhibitionist, their live-monitor-feed was always on 100%.
That's how it was in Canada at least back before broadband was the necessary choice. Even in the "little" towns there were dozens of Dial-Up providers. All of those were bought-out or went tits-up as we headed into the early/mid 2000's. I imagine it was similiar in the States in the 90's, whereas in the mid/late 80's you pretty much needed to have a university account to access outside of the BBS-scene.
Genius!
Not correct, we have an iMac that's about 6 years old, and a MacPro Core2Duo (x64) from early 2007.
Neither can upgrade past Lion. And if we upgrade those machines past Snow Leopard, all the Adobe software needs to be repurchased - architechture change - will not run on Lion or beyond.
Now compare that to my PC-Desktop/Workstation, since 2005 (it's original build) I've changed the CPU and Motherboard once (plus replacements of the mobo upgrade due to failures), added Ram twice: switched to 8GB (2x4GB) for ~$80, then added 16GB on a crazy tiger-direct sale last year ~$90 (delivery took 4 weeks).
Original cost of the first 2005 build, including monitor, ~$800. Plus upgrades (including newer HD's) $500.
My PC started with Win2K in 2005, Win7 in 2011-2012, and Win8 for $30 last year.
Year-in-year-out the non-Mac PC can be kept up to date for linux or Windows with minimal upgrades that really don't cost that much. Whereas Mac propositions are almost always replacing the machine completely at a nearly unreasonable cost.
I was trying to do a "Hangout" with my mother, as it allows screen-sharing and the ability to take control of the other user's machine -- which has allowed me to move forward with our weekly computer training sessions.
:-)
Likewise google didn't like my name -- real name only... I was able to finally push my registration of Google+ through with the "name" Crash N. Burn
Then there's those of us that have had a Belkin router for years with no issue. After Cisco acquired Linksys what was there available for the home market - that didn't suck... D-Link?
Maybe, but you couldn't with confidence buy a D-Link router and know that it would be relatively trouble-free.
Netgear for instance, might be a decent model or might be complete trash. I've had fairly good runs with a few different TP-Link models and Belkin - compared to all of the non-WR54G Linksys models and D-Links that have just crapped out entirely shortly after the warranty expired. Or when we had 2 routers D-link/Linksys that had to alternately be used as they would both overheat and stop routing.
ArsTechnica covered this "epidemic" in March.
...
The Remote Administration Tool is the revolver of the Internet's Wild West.
The article is slightly sensationalist, but interesting
Perhaps law enforcement has opened a can of worms... or monkeys... autistic monkeys.
Obama has been targetting smokers since the beginning. He is an "ex"-smoker, you see so everyone should quit.
When I moved to the states a few years back now, I smoked Djarum. Two months before I moved, Obama + Phillip Morris (Marlboro I believe) Lobbied to ban "flavoured" cigarettes, well except for menthol. The legislation isn't supposed to make sense, it's just supposed to make money.
Phillip Morris with Obama's assistance got all flavoured cigarettes banned in the states. Then Phillip Morris after basically killing the market for many companies in the states (Clove cigarettes, etc) began selling "clove" Marlboro's to indonesia and other Indo-European countries.
Not that Canada is all that much better, they tax cigarettes about 200%. But at least you can still buy them if you feel like it.
Now if you've seen Djarum or other "flavoured" brands in the last 3+ years. They got around the ban by renaming them "Cigarello's" using cigar paper (thicker) and increasing the diameter by about an 1/8 of an inch or so.
Hah! I thought it was Liv Tyler in the T-Mobile commercials.
The interesting thing with Windows --- change under the hood (non-forward facing core changes) has almost always been improvements; minus the f-up in Vista with file-copy priority scheduling. Whereas forward facing (GUI/interface) has mostly been superfluous. E.g. it looks different but functions about the same or better.
... not a button anymore just a piece of unadorned text above the 'file-list'. Same thing with NewFolder in Explorer or the Open/Save dialog.
Microsoft threw that idea out with Windows 8: core changes were good, but the forward facing GUI/Interface was a drastic change that looks different and functions about the same or WORSE. It's likely this started to creep in with Vista onwards, along with the Ribbon-mentality.
The other problem(s) are most noticeable when you do a jump like I did, from Win2000 to Win7, Office2000 to Office2013, etc. Compared to a "normal" customizable toolbar, Ribbons are less flexible, take up more real-estate and usually require more clicks to get the same task accomplished than before.
Where things haven't really changed, it's business as usual --- yet where it has changed, it's almost always worse. Every time I need to uninstall a program my brain does a disconnect trying to locate the "Uninstall" button in "Programs and Features"
The tax rate in Canada and the US is fairly similiar, even for lower salaries (slightly above minimum wage), it's near 20-30%. Middle-Class hovers in the 33% bracket (give or take a few %), and when you start to get into upper-class ranges your tax rate decreases. Income tax in North America (dunno about mexico) is heavily weighted against those that make the least.
Coke/New Coke was planned. Coca Cola flooded the market with New Coke, after less than a year they brought "Coca-Cola Classic" back --- except in America it wasn't Coca Cola Classic ... it was Coca Cola Classic with HFCS instead of sugar. Unlike Canada and Mexico and probably everywhere else in the world where Coke is actually made with sugar.
All CMS's will come "highly-recommended" from someone.
The most interesting CMS's I've seen are Concrete5 and ProcessWire.
The biggest pain-in-the-ass has been Joomla --- funny that it's one of the most popular of the bunch.
Also it's quite interesting to see where the HTML spec has headed with the display property --- see inline-flex, flex, and flex-box.
One thing MS actually got right - and should of been the standard from the beginning is:
It is a complete pain in the ass trying to position elements in HTML when something like this:
is actually 630px wide...and to get an actual 600px width (total) you need to make the div be 570px since the element does NOT include layout spacing in the height/width settings. That aspect of HTML is nothing short of ass-backwards.