In that case you can say that North Korea has free speech, as did the USSR under Stalin.
After all, you could call the leaders idiots, but you were also responsible for the consequences of your actions - a bullet or one way ticket to Siberia.
I would like a Firefox extension that allows me to (optionally) keep multiple cookie-domains. That is, I open a new tab and it has its own cookies (none at the beginning) so that I could, for example, keep multiple gmail accounts open on the same browser.
Basically cookies should be divided by groups and each tab cold either be a part of the default group or one of the other groups (existing ones or I can create a new group for the tab).
Actually, my parents bought the computer with the P100 for me when the CPU was the latest. I used Windows 95 (later 98) with it, not Linux, though I had used DOS and Windows 3.11 before for a little bit, but I did not really use the DOS CLI (Norton Commander FTW). When I later got a Voodoo2, I could even play Quake3 on that PC.
So yea, your statement is both right and wrong. Technically I was too young to buy it on my own (or with my own money), but I still used the PC back when it was possible to brag that you have a PC (and a Pentium no less, with a 850MB hard drive and a CD drive).
And this is why it is difficult or a non-technical user to use a CLI. Yes, CLI is very powerful and for some tasks I prefer it instead of GUI, but the fact remains, that it is difficult for new/inexperienced/non-technical users, so if you want your product to be used by those users, you should make it so that the use of CLI is now required (the option can be there for power users, but regular users should not have to use it).
The design of the CLI in your story sucked. Instead of expanding the scope of a dangerous (because it is difficult to reverse) operation, it should have suggested what it thought was correct and let the user choose.
Which is why I do not like when Google automatically corrects an obscure search to something else - but I like the "Did you mean..." question.Google should only automatically correct the search only if there are no results with the current query and then display "no results were found for "..." showing the results for "..").
Also, if the CLI supported the command "delete all log files" it would be more safe to use automatic correction because a single wrong letter does not change the meaning much. It would be much slower, but easier to use, someone who wanted to be faster could learn the short commands (similar to how GUI is made faster with hotkeys, but using them is completely optional). Basically, if you want to make CLI easy to use for non-technical people, you have to make text-based Siri.
And this is why a GUI is much easier to use, if I do not remember the particular command, I can look at the menus etc and try to figure out where the option is. When I find it, I know that it should be what I want (it does not matter if the menu item is called "delete" or "remove", I can understand what it does). When I go to a restaurant, I like to see the menu and choose from it instead of trying to guess what options are there and how they are called (and CLI is worse than a human waiter because it expects precision).
OK, so Google search is technically a CLI. Still, it is quite different from "normal" CLIs (DOS, Linux, cmd.exe etc). Just because I can drive a (relatively) modern car quite well, does not mean that I would be able to drive one of the early cars (manual mixture adjustment, double declutching, nonstandard controls) just as easily.
OS CLIs usually do not understand synonyms (the command to delete a file in Linux is "rm" short for 'remove", while it is "delete" on DOS/Windows, neither OS understands the other command, even though the words mean essentially the same) which is one of the reasons it is difficult to use them. When I do a basic Google search, I can type whatever I want and Google searches based on the meaning (if I search for "CD", Google will find pages containing "Compact Disc" even if they do not contain the abbreviation).
Just because non-technical users are afraid of a particular interface does not mean you rip it out.
But isn't this what the summary is suggesting (no, I did not RTFA)? Make it so the OS can be used by non-technical users, meaning the CLI has to be an option, rather than a necessity for normal work.
The difference is that Google understands a lot more inputs than any OS CLI. For example, I cannot type "text file editor" to Linux CLI and have it launch nano or similar or at least display what the currently installed text file editors are.
When I do a basic Google search, Google even tries to correct my typos. On the other hand, if I want to extract a.tar.gz archive, I have to type "tar -zxvf archive.tar.gz", if I get one letter wrong, it won't work. Also, the "zxvf" options probably mean something separately, but I just learned that "zxvf" extracts from tar.gz and "zcvf" creates an archive. Which means, that to use a OS command line effectively, I have to remember much more things (options that do the same thing are different for different commands) than I do when using a GUI or Google "CLI". I do not have good memory, so a lot of times I have to do a Google search to translate between what I want to do and CLI (google "Linux how to extract tar.bz2", read the results, edit the command to suit my needs (replace the file name etc), paste it to the command line).
Why not just filter the engine electrical subsystem? I mean use chokes/caps to get rid of short spikes and feed that into a DC-DC converter (or an inverter) that can handle higher input voltage. Should be cheaper than an entire new subsystem.
Also, if the engine start is followed by a spike in the voltage, just connect a relay that disconnects the inverter during engine start until a few seconds after the engine has started. Use a big capacitor or a small battery to provide the power for the period when the relay is disconnected.
I mean what is so different about that van compared to my 1982 Mercedes sedan? In the 17 years that the car has been in my family (my dad used it, now I use it), no tape deck (or anything connected to the cigarette lighter port) was fried.
Completely agree - just look at the situation with Windows. Drivers made for Windows 2000 work on XP, most (not video though) work on vista and 7 (and probably 8). Some drivers even work on Windows NT4. Updates do not break compatibility with drivers, though some newer drivers may not be compatible with old service packs, but that's OK.
The goal of open source everything is admirable, but it is impractical - the company may have signed an NDA regarding part of the hardware, so it cannot release the specs or whatever. Yes, everything open source would be ideal, but I'll just stick with reality - use stuff that works, not caring about the ideology.
I have a 30 year old Mercedes as well - a lot of problems can be fixed easily without expensive tools and they are not that frequent anyways. My car has about half a million km on the odometer, is modified to run on LPG so the fuel costs are comparable to those of much newer cars (since in my country LPG costs about half the price of petrol).
And rebuilding won't cost anything:) Yea, right, for the cost of all the rebuilding it would be possible to buy a whole lot of coal or oil or whatever fuel for a power station. Also, solar power is not suitable for everyone - in my latitude, the shortest day is about 7 and a half hours. I would need a lot of panels to get the power or a lot of batteries (charge in summer, discharge in winter), especially since it's usually overcast and snowing in winter reducing the power even more. Wind power is not suitable for home use since it's noisy and the neighbors may complain.
Also, is it possible to build a heavily insulated skyscraper? I mean you can't build one out of bricks or concrete since it would collapse under its own weight. Metal is a good heat conductor and glass is a good IR conductor. Glass that reflects IR (but passes visible light) can probably be made but would cost much more than regular glass. Absorbing IR is not good, since then the glass would heat up and heat the building.
I react to current temperature, not average (or maybe 1 hour average). If it's +35C or hotter in the room, I cannot do anything, except sit while holding two fans. If it's colder than +10C then I get too cold after some time. If it's +14 - +20C then I'm great.
The building probably was built with AC in mind - if it is like the "modern" buildings (the walls are mostly glass) then it can heat up quite fast - when the sun is shining, every square meter of window lets in about 500W of heat. A building that is made of bricks has much more thermal inertia and also does not let as much heat in/out, since bricks are quite good insulators.
Yes, that's what's best about LCD displays - the quality of the scaled image. Right...
So, all the new interfaces can't do much better than the good old analog VGA? LCDs don't even need to be refreshed as often (85Hz for a CRT is recommended), so even the analog cable should be able to drive the monitor (after all, it can drive the CRT at 1920x1200@85Hz, so a lower refresh rate would mean higher resolution).
Can't Windows just scale the image if the app is not marked as "multiple DPI compatible"? Instead of scaling the text etc, why doesn't Windows just render the image (like a screenshot) and scale that (together with active areas)?
Though I would like a high DPI monitor (currently using a 24" CRT at 1920x1200) so that I could fit more things on the screen.
Well, my car has good suspension and the roads are usually not that bumpy (unpaved roads usually have "high frequency" bumps that do not affect my ability to control the tape deck, just make some noise). I don't think I ever activated the wrong feature - I just use one finger to push the control in the direction I want so the movement of the car won't cause me to move it sideways if I wanted to move it up.
If they had DRM that used signatures instead of encrypting it, only allowing playback on certain devices, with an internet connection that's always on, etc., they'd have a lot better sell rate.
DRM without encryption is no DRM at all - like with DVD region codes (or unskippable ads), only some players would comply with it, while the rest would just ignore the flags. Encryption prevents playback, well, at least until it's cracked.
You buy a lamp made by company A, it breaks and you buy a new lamp from company B. Meanwhile, somebody else buys a lamp from company B, it breaks and he buys a new lamp from company A.
If some company produces lamps that are much worse than the competition then they may be featured in some bad reviews resulting in less sales, but as long as the majority of companies make lamps that last about the same it's all OK.
Another example - currently almost all electronics are made with SMD components, even the devices that are big enough to have a board with trough hole components (ever took apart a new DVD player? there's a lot of empty space in there, you could probably fit a small tube amp in there). SMD components are more difficult to repair than trough hole.
A device with a single moving part should have a well-designed part that continues to move appropriately for decades without problem.
But then you will buy the lamp and not buy it again for a long time. How is the manufacturer going to get the money when you are not replacing the lamp monthly?
Sadly, this is the goal of a lot of companies - make a product that lasts just long enough for the warranty to expire and the customer will go buy it again. Compare this to the design of old devices - especially ones made in the USSR - the devices are very sturdy, even the cheap tape recorder (where the power amp tube gets used as bias oscillator in record mode instead of a separate tube) is made really well - thick metal etc.
That's stupid design. I have a microwave oven but keep it unplugged when I am not using it. It never complains about not knowing the time (it just defaults to 00:00 when plugged in), I can just heat up the food and unplug the oven again.
The tape deck in my car has a 5 way button (I do not know the proper term, but it is like a small joystic - you can move it up/down (controls volume), left/right (searches for radio stations or ff/rw the tape) and press it (mute/pause)). While all buttons on the tape deck can be found just by touch, that one is the easiest and it should be.
My car does not have a lot of features (no AC too, just a fan/heater), but there are a few switches (not buttons) to turn on the rear window heating and emergency signal. Heat and fan speed are knobs, as is the headlight/fog lamp knob (turn it CW to turn on the headlights, pull it out to turn on fog lamps).
Similarly, what idiot decided to put the winshield wiper on the turn signal?
I do not have a problem with the way it is designed in my car - move the handle up/down to indicate a turn, pull it to me to blink the headlights, push it away to turn on the high beam, twist the end to turn on the wipers and push the end in to wash the windscreen. All functions can be performed by interacting with the same handle and the functions are quite hard to mix up.
Working hours correlate well with sunlight in the summer, but winter is different - short days (less than 8 hours during winter solstice in my country (more north from Germany)) not much light during the days and everybody using more power (lighting) make solar power not practical in winter.
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Your anonymos post came from an IP, it was posted to a "comments.pl" identified page embeded with a "google-analytics.com/ga.js" beacon ...
If only there was a way to turn off that script... Oh, wait, there is NoScript. Also Ghostery was created for the purpose of making tracking harder.
In that case you can say that North Korea has free speech, as did the USSR under Stalin.
After all, you could call the leaders idiots, but you were also responsible for the consequences of your actions - a bullet or one way ticket to Siberia.
I would like a Firefox extension that allows me to (optionally) keep multiple cookie-domains. That is, I open a new tab and it has its own cookies (none at the beginning) so that I could, for example, keep multiple gmail accounts open on the same browser.
Basically cookies should be divided by groups and each tab cold either be a part of the default group or one of the other groups (existing ones or I can create a new group for the tab).
Which is why I do not use it (or facebook for that matter).
The only time I send someone my real name over the internet is when I am buying something online (so that the item can be shipped to me).
Actually, my parents bought the computer with the P100 for me when the CPU was the latest. I used Windows 95 (later 98) with it, not Linux, though I had used DOS and Windows 3.11 before for a little bit, but I did not really use the DOS CLI (Norton Commander FTW). When I later got a Voodoo2, I could even play Quake3 on that PC.
So yea, your statement is both right and wrong. Technically I was too young to buy it on my own (or with my own money), but I still used the PC back when it was possible to brag that you have a PC (and a Pentium no less, with a 850MB hard drive and a CD drive).
And this is why it is difficult or a non-technical user to use a CLI. Yes, CLI is very powerful and for some tasks I prefer it instead of GUI, but the fact remains, that it is difficult for new/inexperienced/non-technical users, so if you want your product to be used by those users, you should make it so that the use of CLI is now required (the option can be there for power users, but regular users should not have to use it).
The design of the CLI in your story sucked. Instead of expanding the scope of a dangerous (because it is difficult to reverse) operation, it should have suggested what it thought was correct and let the user choose.
Which is why I do not like when Google automatically corrects an obscure search to something else - but I like the "Did you mean ..." question.Google should only automatically correct the search only if there are no results with the current query and then display "no results were found for "..." showing the results for "..").
Also, if the CLI supported the command "delete all log files" it would be more safe to use automatic correction because a single wrong letter does not change the meaning much. It would be much slower, but easier to use, someone who wanted to be faster could learn the short commands (similar to how GUI is made faster with hotkeys, but using them is completely optional). Basically, if you want to make CLI easy to use for non-technical people, you have to make text-based Siri.
And this is why a GUI is much easier to use, if I do not remember the particular command, I can look at the menus etc and try to figure out where the option is. When I find it, I know that it should be what I want (it does not matter if the menu item is called "delete" or "remove", I can understand what it does). When I go to a restaurant, I like to see the menu and choose from it instead of trying to guess what options are there and how they are called (and CLI is worse than a human waiter because it expects precision).
OK, so Google search is technically a CLI. Still, it is quite different from "normal" CLIs (DOS, Linux, cmd.exe etc). Just because I can drive a (relatively) modern car quite well, does not mean that I would be able to drive one of the early cars (manual mixture adjustment, double declutching, nonstandard controls) just as easily.
OS CLIs usually do not understand synonyms (the command to delete a file in Linux is "rm" short for 'remove", while it is "delete" on DOS/Windows, neither OS understands the other command, even though the words mean essentially the same) which is one of the reasons it is difficult to use them. When I do a basic Google search, I can type whatever I want and Google searches based on the meaning (if I search for "CD", Google will find pages containing "Compact Disc" even if they do not contain the abbreviation).
Just because non-technical users are afraid of a particular interface does not mean you rip it out.
But isn't this what the summary is suggesting (no, I did not RTFA)? Make it so the OS can be used by non-technical users, meaning the CLI has to be an option, rather than a necessity for normal work.
The difference is that Google understands a lot more inputs than any OS CLI. For example, I cannot type "text file editor" to Linux CLI and have it launch nano or similar or at least display what the currently installed text file editors are.
When I do a basic Google search, Google even tries to correct my typos. On the other hand, if I want to extract a .tar.gz archive, I have to type "tar -zxvf archive.tar.gz", if I get one letter wrong, it won't work. Also, the "zxvf" options probably mean something separately, but I just learned that "zxvf" extracts from tar.gz and "zcvf" creates an archive. Which means, that to use a OS command line effectively, I have to remember much more things (options that do the same thing are different for different commands) than I do when using a GUI or Google "CLI". I do not have good memory, so a lot of times I have to do a Google search to translate between what I want to do and CLI (google "Linux how to extract tar.bz2", read the results, edit the command to suit my needs (replace the file name etc), paste it to the command line).
Why not just filter the engine electrical subsystem? I mean use chokes/caps to get rid of short spikes and feed that into a DC-DC converter (or an inverter) that can handle higher input voltage. Should be cheaper than an entire new subsystem.
Also, if the engine start is followed by a spike in the voltage, just connect a relay that disconnects the inverter during engine start until a few seconds after the engine has started. Use a big capacitor or a small battery to provide the power for the period when the relay is disconnected.
I mean what is so different about that van compared to my 1982 Mercedes sedan? In the 17 years that the car has been in my family (my dad used it, now I use it), no tape deck (or anything connected to the cigarette lighter port) was fried.
Completely agree - just look at the situation with Windows. Drivers made for Windows 2000 work on XP, most (not video though) work on vista and 7 (and probably 8). Some drivers even work on Windows NT4. Updates do not break compatibility with drivers, though some newer drivers may not be compatible with old service packs, but that's OK.
The goal of open source everything is admirable, but it is impractical - the company may have signed an NDA regarding part of the hardware, so it cannot release the specs or whatever. Yes, everything open source would be ideal, but I'll just stick with reality - use stuff that works, not caring about the ideology.
I have a 30 year old Mercedes as well - a lot of problems can be fixed easily without expensive tools and they are not that frequent anyways. My car has about half a million km on the odometer, is modified to run on LPG so the fuel costs are comparable to those of much newer cars (since in my country LPG costs about half the price of petrol).
And rebuilding won't cost anything :) Yea, right, for the cost of all the rebuilding it would be possible to buy a whole lot of coal or oil or whatever fuel for a power station. Also, solar power is not suitable for everyone - in my latitude, the shortest day is about 7 and a half hours. I would need a lot of panels to get the power or a lot of batteries (charge in summer, discharge in winter), especially since it's usually overcast and snowing in winter reducing the power even more. Wind power is not suitable for home use since it's noisy and the neighbors may complain.
Also, is it possible to build a heavily insulated skyscraper? I mean you can't build one out of bricks or concrete since it would collapse under its own weight. Metal is a good heat conductor and glass is a good IR conductor. Glass that reflects IR (but passes visible light) can probably be made but would cost much more than regular glass. Absorbing IR is not good, since then the glass would heat up and heat the building.
I react to current temperature, not average (or maybe 1 hour average). If it's +35C or hotter in the room, I cannot do anything, except sit while holding two fans. If it's colder than +10C then I get too cold after some time. If it's +14 - +20C then I'm great.
The building probably was built with AC in mind - if it is like the "modern" buildings (the walls are mostly glass) then it can heat up quite fast - when the sun is shining, every square meter of window lets in about 500W of heat. A building that is made of bricks has much more thermal inertia and also does not let as much heat in/out, since bricks are quite good insulators.
The increased peak hour revenue could be used to lower off-peak electricity prices so that people pay on average the same as before.
So if the power is used for cooling then people can sit in +40C during peak and at -4C off-peak to make the average temperature a comfortable 18C?
Yes, that's what's best about LCD displays - the quality of the scaled image. Right...
So, all the new interfaces can't do much better than the good old analog VGA? LCDs don't even need to be refreshed as often (85Hz for a CRT is recommended), so even the analog cable should be able to drive the monitor (after all, it can drive the CRT at 1920x1200@85Hz, so a lower refresh rate would mean higher resolution).
Can't Windows just scale the image if the app is not marked as "multiple DPI compatible"? Instead of scaling the text etc, why doesn't Windows just render the image (like a screenshot) and scale that (together with active areas)?
Though I would like a high DPI monitor (currently using a 24" CRT at 1920x1200) so that I could fit more things on the screen.
Well, my car has good suspension and the roads are usually not that bumpy (unpaved roads usually have "high frequency" bumps that do not affect my ability to control the tape deck, just make some noise). I don't think I ever activated the wrong feature - I just use one finger to push the control in the direction I want so the movement of the car won't cause me to move it sideways if I wanted to move it up.
If they had DRM that used signatures instead of encrypting it, only allowing playback on certain devices, with an internet connection that's always on, etc., they'd have a lot better sell rate.
DRM without encryption is no DRM at all - like with DVD region codes (or unskippable ads), only some players would comply with it, while the rest would just ignore the flags. Encryption prevents playback, well, at least until it's cracked.
You buy a lamp made by company A, it breaks and you buy a new lamp from company B. Meanwhile, somebody else buys a lamp from company B, it breaks and he buys a new lamp from company A.
If some company produces lamps that are much worse than the competition then they may be featured in some bad reviews resulting in less sales, but as long as the majority of companies make lamps that last about the same it's all OK.
Another example - currently almost all electronics are made with SMD components, even the devices that are big enough to have a board with trough hole components (ever took apart a new DVD player? there's a lot of empty space in there, you could probably fit a small tube amp in there). SMD components are more difficult to repair than trough hole.
A device with a single moving part should have a well-designed part that continues to move appropriately for decades without problem.
But then you will buy the lamp and not buy it again for a long time. How is the manufacturer going to get the money when you are not replacing the lamp monthly?
Sadly, this is the goal of a lot of companies - make a product that lasts just long enough for the warranty to expire and the customer will go buy it again. Compare this to the design of old devices - especially ones made in the USSR - the devices are very sturdy, even the cheap tape recorder (where the power amp tube gets used as bias oscillator in record mode instead of a separate tube) is made really well - thick metal etc.
That's stupid design. I have a microwave oven but keep it unplugged when I am not using it. It never complains about not knowing the time (it just defaults to 00:00 when plugged in), I can just heat up the food and unplug the oven again.
The tape deck in my car has a 5 way button (I do not know the proper term, but it is like a small joystic - you can move it up/down (controls volume), left/right (searches for radio stations or ff/rw the tape) and press it (mute/pause)). While all buttons on the tape deck can be found just by touch, that one is the easiest and it should be.
My car does not have a lot of features (no AC too, just a fan/heater), but there are a few switches (not buttons) to turn on the rear window heating and emergency signal. Heat and fan speed are knobs, as is the headlight/fog lamp knob (turn it CW to turn on the headlights, pull it out to turn on fog lamps).
Similarly, what idiot decided to put the winshield wiper on the turn signal?
I do not have a problem with the way it is designed in my car - move the handle up/down to indicate a turn, pull it to me to blink the headlights, push it away to turn on the high beam, twist the end to turn on the wipers and push the end in to wash the windscreen. All functions can be performed by interacting with the same handle and the functions are quite hard to mix up.
Working hours correlate well with sunlight in the summer, but winter is different - short days (less than 8 hours during winter solstice in my country (more north from Germany)) not much light during the days and everybody using more power (lighting) make solar power not practical in winter.