Wow. MatchMaker.com gave like 3 weeks free with full access (if you uploaded a picture). And I found that 3 weeks was about the amount of time that it took to go through all the women in my area (20 mile radius). So I didn't have to pay. I just used up my 3 weeks. If I wasn't dating anyone a couple months later, I created a new account and gave it another go. I did have a problem with few responses per message sent, but I think that is pretty common for men everywhere. I'd say the ratio was about 1:7.
But that was 6 years ago (I married someone from the site). I'm not sure what matchmaker.com is like now. I'm sure they got tired of people like me taking advantage and tightened things up.
What kind of twist of ego can convince a person that the lack in quality/quanity replies is indicitive of a lack of quality women? If I couldn't get any desirable women to reply to me, I might start to question my relative attractiveness... not the attractiveness of the women.
There is only a "stigma" insofar as you feel embarassed about finding dates online. I met my now wife online about 6 years ago. Nobody laughed at us or anything like that when we told them how we met. Mostly people were curious about how it worked. Some even asked for the website. And if you take the time to explain it, people see how it isn't any different than meeting someone in a bar or whatever.
I don't see why it would be gross there - aren't they constantly cirulating and filtering the air, as in any closed environment?
Just imagine every cough, sneeze, loose liquid, food, etc just floating around and sticking to things. Even if you filter the air, you've still got stuff stuck the the walls. Mold is a pretty big problem in space, from what I understand.
I wonder if there is a significant increase in risk of infection. From waht I understand, zero gravity environments are notoriously dirty. Disgusting, even. You sneaze, for example, and the result just floats and sticks to the wall. Bits of food float around (harboring microbes, etc.) How does one create sterile environment in zero-G?
Another definition of breakthrough: An experience on a psychedelic drug that is beyond the threshold of normal perceived reality and wholely inside an alternate world or state of mind.
Finally, like *any* creature on earth, Humans seem programmed to breed until the local carrying capacity is exceeded (through exhaustion of food resources for example, or in our case, eventual fouling of our living area), and then suffer a mass die-off.
I'm not sure this is necessarily true. I don't think there is a programmed need to have lots of children, per se. The programmed need is to have sex. With voluntary birth control, you can have the sex without the children. And in developed contries, this is exactly what people are doing. Birth rates in Europe, for example, are dropping below what is required to keep a steady population.
You claim humans are somehow endowed with "intellect", and thus should be able to break the cycle? Unless you're willing to impose an enviro communism that determines breeding allowances per person, and rip resources by force from one person to give to another, I'd argue that you're simply being naive.
No need to impose anything on people. Make voluntary birth control available and eliminate the conditions which encourage high birth rates, and we should see at least a leveling off of population... if not a steady decrease.
1. Increased aridity thanks to increased temperature and shifts in weather patterns. This causes things like:
Higher temps, and more liquid water, means more evaporation and more rain. No? I understand that some places will dry up (and currently are drying up) but all that evaporated water has to come down SOMEWHERE. Maybe not Canada, nobody really knows, but someone has to benefit.
I think places like Canada would certainly benefit from global warming, and perhaps the long term effect might not be so bad on the whole of the globe. The real problem is that we've adapted to the way the climate is now. So any sudden (as in decades) change is going to be a royal pain in the butt.
No, really, its not. If most users spent all their time working on computers, and didn't switch platforms, then it might be a reasonable assumption.
Well, I don't think most peole switch platforms. I can't say they spend *all* their time using computers, but certainly many people spend a good portion of the work day using computers. So I think it is a reasonable assumption.
Anyway, my point is that an applicaiton being cross-platform is no excuse for imposing a UI standard from one platform on users another platform. For example, i would be pretty annoyed if Firefox on Mac didn't have Quit/Preferences in the application menu like all other Mac applications. Or worse, Firfox might put the menubar in the browser window instead of the normal menubar at the top of the screen. I WANT Firefox to behave differently on each platform because I "switch gears" when I switch platforms. When I am on Windows, I expect things to work one way, when I am on a Mac I expect them to work another.
If I'm a regular user with, as many regular users have, a small handful of programs I regularly use, I'll have a natural expectation that the UI arrangement and behavior of other programs doing similar things will match those programs. But it won't necessarily be the OS UI standards, except for the most basic things, if, for instance, I'm a regular Microsoft Office user, since Office, except for the most basic things, doesn't particularly closely follow the existing standards on the platform (even though its MS's own platform.)
One would hope that they at least started with their own UI guidlines as a basis for behavior. Even if it did eventually diverge. If you use MS Office on a Mac, you'll notice that it looks and feels quite a bit different than on Windows.
If the application is doing very different things, there is less in the way of UI expectations.
I think applicaiton behavior can be generalized much more than you think. A developer might be tempted to think "my program is special. it is so different than anything else out there," when really, that is more hubris than anything else.
Adherence to platform standards enhances usability for users who have previously used lots of software adhering to those standards, for everyone else its not necessarily a benefit. And much of the most popular software on Windows adheres poorly to any but the most basic platform standards (things like standard decorators, print dialogs, etc.)
Still, those basic things matter. Consistent print dialogs matter. The order of Yes/No buttons matter.
I would agree that an application should try to do what it's target audience is likely to find intuitive and natural, which will generally in some degree be shaped by target platform UI standards. But I don't think that one should, either, mistake simple adherence to target platform UI standards as being either sufficient or even necessary for an interface to be intuitive and natural to targetted users.
Ideally, a developer would do their own usablity studies. But this isn't always feasable. Microsoft and Apple HAVE done usability studies. And I say when in doubt, and when you don't have your own data to suggest otherwise, follow the UI guidelines of the platform. I'm just saying that you should have a good reason for diverging from the standard. Otherwise, you're just contributing to a confusing user experience (as exists on Windows).
25-50 hours on an older RPG? Wow, i must have sucked. I would play those for like 100 hours. The old Forgotten Realms games. Or maybe I'm just romanticizing. I mean, during the summer, I'm pretty sure I would spend at least a 40 hour work week playing for at least 2 weeks on one game. It sure seems like I chewed up a lot of time on just one game, anyway.
As for modern games, I think I put at least 30 hours into my Oblivion character before getting bored. And I wasn't even half way through, I suspect.
I dispute the second half of your premise -- I haven't found anybody who is both (1) familiar with the term and (2) associates it with Apple.
When I first heard the term "podcast" I immediately thought it had something to do with the iPod. I thought it was some thing that iTunes did in in conjunction with an iPod to broadcast music on the internet (or maybe to your stereo). Sure, I eventually learned that this was not the case, but the poitn is that my initial thought associated podcast with the iPod. I would not be surprised if there are still a lot of people who haven't gone past that kind of initial reaction. I'm sure many people not "in the know" just assume that one uses an iPod to create a podcast. It makes sense at least on a superficial level, doesn't it?
Sure, but that "previous experience" may not be consistent with the OS UI guidelines either; for instance, my biggest personal problem with that is that menu items are in different places in Firefox on Linux and Firefox on Windows. The assumption that the principal experience that is going to shape your application's users expectations is represented by conformity to the OS's UI guidelines is probabyl not all that generally applicable,
Seeing as most users do not switch from platform to platform on regular basis, it is a perfectly reasonable and applicable assumption. If I'm a regular Windows, user I expect to find menu items where other Windows programs put them. The fact that Firefox runs on many platforms is completely irrelevent. Firefox should conform as best as possible to the guidelines/standards of the platform it is running on. And since there is currenly no magic to make this happen automatically, developers should take the time to make it happen.
particularly on a new OS use UI guidelines break from the common practice on even the immediate predecessor of that OS.
Then I guess you need to decide whether or not you want to follow the common practice in the immediate predecessor or help encourage the new standard. But whatever you do, don't do things the same way as a competely different OS just because YOU happen to switch a lot and prefer the way it is done on the other OS. Well, you can do whatever you want, I suppose. But it seems a little selfish.
"Intuitive for the user" and "consistent with the platform guidelines from the OS manufacturer" are not the same thing,
Maybe not, but dont' underestimate the value of consistency. If you put some menu item, for example, in a place other than where the user expects it based on previous experience, your application is going to stand out as "unintuitive." Doesn't matter if your way is "better" in some larger picture.
nd I think the difference is largely that with telnet, you get a random sample of users from everywhere, whereas with dialup, you got mainly folks in the local calling distance, plus subsets of regulars on other BBSs that shared the same messaging networks. So with dialup, there was already a shared culture factor, just from proximity
This is the deal breaker for me. A telnet BBS could never recreate the feel of a one/two-line local BBS. Also, it seems contrived. There was a certain charm to using a modem and a terminal program becuase thats all you had. If you have this fancy GUI and web browser available, it just seems silly to telnet to some BBS just to be "retro."
What made BBSes personal was their locality. Half the fun of BBSing was flaming someone or beating their ass at some door game and then finding out that you know the guy from school... or it is the brother of a guy you know. It was a strange mix of anonynimity and familiarity.
Also, there is something very appealing about knowing that you are dialed into a computer in some local guy's basement. I always felt so priviged to chat with the sysop. I actually visited a couple of my favorite sysops just to see their setup.
I never did care for the big multi-line BBSes. They were OK for leeching files that you couldn't find locally, but otherwise they were no fun. I'd only call a big BBS if all my regular one-liners were busy.
Two or three years after I got my Mac Classic in '91, I discovered the joys of using a modem to chat with that same friend, who lived two miles away. It's a shame he was in a pay phone code from my house (yes, things are that messed up here that you have to pay to call two miles, thanks regulations) otherwise I'd have experimented more - at least I found the control-G trick and used it to freak him out at will.
Ha! CTRL-G was an accidental discovery for me. Who would have thought that a beep would be encoded in a character? I remember trying CTRL-G it in Yahoo! messenger years later and it worked! Made the chat window shake and make noise. I got a kick out of that.
I used to connect directly with a friend and we'd chat right through the terminal program. It was pretty dumb. We could have just called each other and talked voice. Although this way we could transfer files to each other. I believe my terminal program of choice was Telemate. It did all the file transfer stuff. Never had any use for a mail reader though. The only electronic communication I had was just the forums and private messages on BBSes.
Wow. 28 and you remember 300 baud phone couplers? I'm 31 and I got in around 2400 baud. You must have been a pretty young BBSer. Probably a really annoying one too.;-)
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Wow. MatchMaker.com gave like 3 weeks free with full access (if you uploaded a picture). And I found that 3 weeks was about the amount of time that it took to go through all the women in my area (20 mile radius). So I didn't have to pay. I just used up my 3 weeks. If I wasn't dating anyone a couple months later, I created a new account and gave it another go. I did have a problem with few responses per message sent, but I think that is pretty common for men everywhere. I'd say the ratio was about 1:7.
But that was 6 years ago (I married someone from the site). I'm not sure what matchmaker.com is like now. I'm sure they got tired of people like me taking advantage and tightened things up.
-matthew
What kind of twist of ego can convince a person that the lack in quality/quanity replies is indicitive of a lack of quality women? If I couldn't get any desirable women to reply to me, I might start to question my relative attractiveness... not the attractiveness of the women.
-matthew
There is only a "stigma" insofar as you feel embarassed about finding dates online. I met my now wife online about 6 years ago. Nobody laughed at us or anything like that when we told them how we met. Mostly people were curious about how it worked. Some even asked for the website. And if you take the time to explain it, people see how it isn't any different than meeting someone in a bar or whatever.
-matthew
Just imagine every cough, sneeze, loose liquid, food, etc just floating around and sticking to things. Even if you filter the air, you've still got stuff stuck the the walls. Mold is a pretty big problem in space, from what I understand.
-matthew
I wonder if there is a significant increase in risk of infection. From waht I understand, zero gravity environments are notoriously dirty. Disgusting, even. You sneaze, for example, and the result just floats and sticks to the wall. Bits of food float around (harboring microbes, etc.) How does one create sterile environment in zero-G?
-matthew
Sure beats the Republican alternative: Spend and spend.
-matthew
It might be cool to be green, but it isn't easy.
-Kermit The Frog
Ok, but how many Library of Congresses does it hold??
Another definition of breakthrough: An experience on a psychedelic drug that is beyond the threshold of normal perceived reality and wholely inside an alternate world or state of mind.
-matthew
Or in the case of advertising, anything they say will solve all your problems.
I'm not sure this is necessarily true. I don't think there is a programmed need to have lots of children, per se. The programmed need is to have sex. With voluntary birth control, you can have the sex without the children. And in developed contries, this is exactly what people are doing. Birth rates in Europe, for example, are dropping below what is required to keep a steady population.
No need to impose anything on people. Make voluntary birth control available and eliminate the conditions which encourage high birth rates, and we should see at least a leveling off of population... if not a steady decrease.
-matthew
Higher temps, and more liquid water, means more evaporation and more rain. No? I understand that some places will dry up (and currently are drying up) but all that evaporated water has to come down SOMEWHERE. Maybe not Canada, nobody really knows, but someone has to benefit.
-matthew
I think places like Canada would certainly benefit from global warming, and perhaps the long term effect might not be so bad on the whole of the globe. The real problem is that we've adapted to the way the climate is now. So any sudden (as in decades) change is going to be a royal pain in the butt.
Well, I don't think most peole switch platforms. I can't say they spend *all* their time using computers, but certainly many people spend a good portion of the work day using computers. So I think it is a reasonable assumption.
Anyway, my point is that an applicaiton being cross-platform is no excuse for imposing a UI standard from one platform on users another platform. For example, i would be pretty annoyed if Firefox on Mac didn't have Quit/Preferences in the application menu like all other Mac applications. Or worse, Firfox might put the menubar in the browser window instead of the normal menubar at the top of the screen. I WANT Firefox to behave differently on each platform because I "switch gears" when I switch platforms. When I am on Windows, I expect things to work one way, when I am on a Mac I expect them to work another.
One would hope that they at least started with their own UI guidlines as a basis for behavior. Even if it did eventually diverge. If you use MS Office on a Mac, you'll notice that it looks and feels quite a bit different than on Windows.
I think applicaiton behavior can be generalized much more than you think. A developer might be tempted to think "my program is special. it is so different than anything else out there," when really, that is more hubris than anything else.
Still, those basic things matter. Consistent print dialogs matter. The order of Yes/No buttons matter.
Ideally, a developer would do their own usablity studies. But this isn't always feasable. Microsoft and Apple HAVE done usability studies. And I say when in doubt, and when you don't have your own data to suggest otherwise, follow the UI guidelines of the platform. I'm just saying that you should have a good reason for diverging from the standard. Otherwise, you're just contributing to a confusing user experience (as exists on Windows).
-matthew
25-50 hours on an older RPG? Wow, i must have sucked. I would play those for like 100 hours. The old Forgotten Realms games. Or maybe I'm just romanticizing. I mean, during the summer, I'm pretty sure I would spend at least a 40 hour work week playing for at least 2 weeks on one game. It sure seems like I chewed up a lot of time on just one game, anyway.
As for modern games, I think I put at least 30 hours into my Oblivion character before getting bored. And I wasn't even half way through, I suspect.
-matthew
When I first heard the term "podcast" I immediately thought it had something to do with the iPod. I thought it was some thing that iTunes did in in conjunction with an iPod to broadcast music on the internet (or maybe to your stereo). Sure, I eventually learned that this was not the case, but the poitn is that my initial thought associated podcast with the iPod. I would not be surprised if there are still a lot of people who haven't gone past that kind of initial reaction. I'm sure many people not "in the know" just assume that one uses an iPod to create a podcast. It makes sense at least on a superficial level, doesn't it?
-matthew
Seeing as most users do not switch from platform to platform on regular basis, it is a perfectly reasonable and applicable assumption. If I'm a regular Windows, user I expect to find menu items where other Windows programs put them. The fact that Firefox runs on many platforms is completely irrelevent. Firefox should conform as best as possible to the guidelines/standards of the platform it is running on. And since there is currenly no magic to make this happen automatically, developers should take the time to make it happen.
Then I guess you need to decide whether or not you want to follow the common practice in the immediate predecessor or help encourage the new standard. But whatever you do, don't do things the same way as a competely different OS just because YOU happen to switch a lot and prefer the way it is done on the other OS. Well, you can do whatever you want, I suppose. But it seems a little selfish.
-matthew
Sounds pretty "retro" to me. Is BlueWave still DOS based?
Maybe not, but dont' underestimate the value of consistency. If you put some menu item, for example, in a place other than where the user expects it based on previous experience, your application is going to stand out as "unintuitive." Doesn't matter if your way is "better" in some larger picture.
-matthew
This is the deal breaker for me. A telnet BBS could never recreate the feel of a one/two-line local BBS. Also, it seems contrived. There was a certain charm to using a modem and a terminal program becuase thats all you had. If you have this fancy GUI and web browser available, it just seems silly to telnet to some BBS just to be "retro."
-matthew
What made BBSes personal was their locality. Half the fun of BBSing was flaming someone or beating their ass at some door game and then finding out that you know the guy from school... or it is the brother of a guy you know. It was a strange mix of anonynimity and familiarity.
Also, there is something very appealing about knowing that you are dialed into a computer in some local guy's basement. I always felt so priviged to chat with the sysop. I actually visited a couple of my favorite sysops just to see their setup.
I never did care for the big multi-line BBSes. They were OK for leeching files that you couldn't find locally, but otherwise they were no fun. I'd only call a big BBS if all my regular one-liners were busy.
-matthew
Ha! CTRL-G was an accidental discovery for me. Who would have thought that a beep would be encoded in a character? I remember trying CTRL-G it in Yahoo! messenger years later and it worked! Made the chat window shake and make noise. I got a kick out of that.
-matthew
I used to connect directly with a friend and we'd chat right through the terminal program. It was pretty dumb. We could have just called each other and talked voice. Although this way we could transfer files to each other. I believe my terminal program of choice was Telemate. It did all the file transfer stuff. Never had any use for a mail reader though. The only electronic communication I had was just the forums and private messages on BBSes.
-matthew
Wow. 28 and you remember 300 baud phone couplers? I'm 31 and I got in around 2400 baud. You must have been a pretty young BBSer. Probably a really annoying one too. ;-)
-matthew
The advantage to overnight charging would be the price drop. You would save a LOT of money charging at home vs. at a station during the day.
-matthew