You are allowed to choose arbitrary groups to view results. So if you join the "I love pink ponies" group you will get rather different search rankings from "I'm a Hell's Angel biker".
Google will generate and name some groups by itself.
Users can also create their own groups by weighting a number of other user's POVs on search results.
e.g. Crystal's "Fluffy Bunnies" group could be (3 * ILoveTwilight) + (2 x GirlzRule) + (-1 * GirlsAreGross).
This way if you really like SEO spam, you can always look for a group that likes it, or create one yourself:).
And Google might say: here are other groups that like these results first.
Sorry... Too lazy to create yet another account:).
Anyway the thing is most GUIs already keep track of (all?) the past windows in order of last clicked (removing dupes). This is for the alt tab feature - when you hold down alt and keep pressing and releasing tab, you move backwards in that list, once you release alt you end up with the selected window.
What I'm suggesting for GUIs to do is: when the user presses alt+0 (or winkey+0), just look at that list/stack of past windows, and then assign the most recent 9 to alt+1 to alt+9 (or winkey+1 to winkey+9 or whatever works). The windows stay assigned to those keys until alt+0 is pressed again.
An additional thing: perhaps alt+ "=" (equals sign) followed by alt+number would have the current foreground window replace the corresponding numbered window in the list, so that you can replace windows without doing an alt+0 style renumber (which might be undesirable - once you have stuff nicely remembered:) ).
I don't know how easy that is to implement. But I hope at least a fair number of people would find it useful.
Not surprised he had millions in the bank. It's good business if you can keep selling 1 million dollar stuff for 30 million.
So what's your point? That he'd stop trying to make lots more money because he already had millions in the bank?
That's hilarious if you knew how a typical chinese businessman thinks.
Most Chinese care about Family and Money (for some - Money first then Family;) ), Country at most is a distant 3rd place. Yes they will get that patriotic spirit from time to time, but that's about it.
Just go visit a chinese temple and see what they ask for. Count how many ask for good fortune and $$$, or healing/blessings for their family members, and count how many ask for "China to be blessed".
Take a close look at the Chinese New Year festivities and see what it's all about. The names of the food. The reasons for doing stuff.
Think those chinese in China putting melamine in everything and everywhere were doing it because they loved China? Or hated America? They were doing it to make themselves richer.
I bet if the French government also offered the Taiwanese guy 20 million for the designs, he'd make copies and sell them to both the French and Chinese governments. Unless he was getting enough extra money for an exclusive deal and goodwill.
There are more than two parties. Voters who aren't aware of that have abdicated especially if they don't want to vote for either of the two parties.
If the other parties are worse than the Two and there is nobody better amongst the available citizens who wants to be a candidate, then by definition you are getting the best choice, Democracy is working as well as it can and it's the citizens who are crap.
If there indeed is a better candidate, then vote for him/her.
In the 2004 election, approximately 62 million voted for Bush, 59 million for Kerry, and about 78+ million eligible to vote didn't bother to vote.
In the 2008 election, 67M for Obama, 59M for McCain, and about 70M didn't bother.
If those 70+ million figured that someone else was better, even if their votes were split in two or three, I bet the Two parties would start paying a bit more attention and might shift their position accordingly.
As it is, why should the Two parties bother? Between the two of them they've got the support of 98-99% of the voters who can be bothered to vote.
"Chinese ppl are happy to see their country coming up"
And that Taiwanese guy was also "all too happy" to sell something that costs 1 million to the Chinese Government for 30 million.
30 million dollars. Not 2 million, not 1.5 million.
Oh yeah, it was because of patriotism or "The Love of China" that he gave them 50% off the original price of 60 million. That must be it eh?
Given what I know of Chinese people, it's far more likely that the Taiwanese guy was just seeing it as a great business opportunity - a chance to make lots of money.
You were the one with the "love for your country (or other thing)" which got in the way.
The Chinese government was willing to pay for US secrets. And chinese people (and other free market loving people;) ) are very happy to sell it to the Chinese government, for the right price.
"I was actually shocked since I considered him Tawainese and would not do that"
Why wouldn't he do that? He's Taiwanese not American. Selling US tech to China _might_ only negatively affect Taiwan in the future, and even if it did, he and his family would have millions in the bank - so they could move to Australia or Singapore or wherever.
"The people very loudly clamored against that, to no avail"
Bush still got reelected.
So either the voters didn't object to it that much, or the elections got significantly Diebolded...
You will have a problem as long as voters keep voting for candidates mainly because those candidates get a lot of money from greedy companies. Go figure.
Democracy is window dressing if the voters abdicate. Which is what many do.
If there's a better way than using a keyboard to get text from my mind to a computer, I'll be happy to use it. But the mouse sure isn't it. For "pointing" the mouse is far far better than the keyboard, but much "office" work will be faster if you can reduce the need to use the mouse.
Brain-computer interfaces still have some way to go.
"You'd have to launch some sort of program to select and remember sequential multiple windows"
That program is normally called a GUI.
Go to a machine with windows, hold down the Alt key, then press and release the Tab key while keeping the Alt key held down. You will see a list of tasks/windows.
Observe the order they are arranged.
Yes, bizarre indeed.
As for "less than one second" = geek neurosis.
Try this: Get someone to time how long it takes for you to switch amongst a set of three or four windows (e.g. A->B->C->A->D->B ). How many milliseconds per window switch?
In that time, how many times can you press alt-tab? How many milliseconds per window switch?
Now look at a skilled nongeek worker use a terminal. They can really learn to do stuff fast. Shortcut keys/hotkeys etc.
The problem is with current popular GUIs switching from one window to another is slow compared to what these people can achieve. And that means millions of humans are not being as augmented as much as they could.
For many computer games an extra lag of 300 milliseconds is considered poor. I don't see why we should have such low standards for GUIs that millions will have to use (or endure).
"If this is a feature you want badly, then just do it"
I've already submitted the bug report.
When I go to a restaurant and if I think they can do something better, I tell them. I don't go home, figure out how to cook the same dish better and present the new recipe back to them.
After all: 1) I'm unlikely to be as good as the chef in his area of expertise. 2) If they don't like my suggestion, there's no point for me wasting all that time only for them to reject my recipe. Even if the new recipe benefits me, it won't benefit the restaurant or other diners. 3) I have other things to do.
"if the windows you work with really change that often, then how could you possibly remember which is which with any sort of reliability?"
Why not? Go look at that slashdot poll. So many people have 20+ tabs open. And most people can keep about four to seven items in their short term mem (if they need to remember more they tend to group multiple items into one item). When they start working with a particular subset, they'll remember them. Then when they switch to a different subset, they'll remember that too. Having to repeatedly search for an item amongst 20+ items is a waste of time.
"Lose the Usenet underscores. They're obnoxious."
And you're the one mentioning "neurosis" and "obnoxious". Ironic.
VM stuff is nice, but sometimes you need to have the "real thing" - sometimes stuff performs significantly differently when virtualized. Some VM stuff don't have good database performance.
With two machines if you're doing web/database, one can be the client and the other can be the server.
No point getting "monster" stuff if you mean "high end", since it's diminishing returns once you get above a certain point.
Machines with 2GB or even 4GB of RAM aren't that expensive nowadays.
What I suggest you get are extra drives, and preferably easily removable/swappable drives.
Then you could have huge drives (good GB per $$$) with virtual machines in them, and you could swap them out for cheaper smaller drives with "real machines" in them and test different O/Ses and configurations without having to waste time reinstalling and updating.
A 3rd machine would be nice - so you can do work or post on slashdot etc without affecting your "real machine" benchmark tests:).
Moving from keyboard to mouse and back again = slow Having to press the same key multiple times (e.g. left arrow, left arrow or tab tab tab) = slow.
I prefer to waste time on stuff of my choice than waste time fiddling with the GUI.
The utilities do NOT do what I'm talking about. What they do is very _static_ and SLOW to set up and _change_.
I want it so that if I select windows A, B, C, D, then press alt+0, the four different windows will automatically be assigned: alt+1 = D alt+2 = C alt+3 = B alt+4 = A...
Then once I'm done with A-D, if I then select windows P, Q, R, S, T, U, V and press alt+0, the keys are reassigned to the corresponding windows:
alt+1 = V alt+2 = U alt+3 = T alt+4 = S alt+5 = R alt+6 = Q alt+7 = P
Duplicate window selections overwrite the older selection - e.g. if I select P, then Q, then P, then R, then P then S, it's S, P, R, Q = 1, 2, 3, 4. No multiple mappings for P.
A nongeek might even be able to be taught how to use that.
Lastly having it be a standard part of the GUI is a significant advantage to having it be a custom config (worse if it involves 3rd party software).
If it is as standard as alt-tab, fewer apps would clash with the hotkeys - which means it can be used with more apps - which is the whole point of the feature anyway - being able to do more and faster.
Others may not want to be able to do more stuff and do it faster, but I do, and so that is why I find the lack of this feature a _problem_.
The design flaw with Communism (or at least the popular implementation plan) is that the Communist Manifesto states that violence (force) is acceptable[1] for implementing Communism.
When you say violence is OK, what tends to happen is the person capable and willing to exert the most violence rises to the top. That person then becomes Dictator.
Thus violent revolutions are more likely to lead to Dictatorships. And since the popular Communist implementation plan involves violence, it should be no surprise that (all?) Communist Revolutions have led to Dictatorships.
It is rare to find a Dictator who once having obtained great power will gladly relinquish it to the people.
[1] See: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/61/61.txt Look for "sweeps away by force" "The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions". The German version does not appear to be more "peaceable";).
It does NOT do the trick at all, since I cannot go straight to the window I want with a single key combo.
Why waste time reading and selecting from an easy-to-read list, when you already know which window you want?
Worse if I still have to lift my hand and move it to the mouse, or press a few more keys - that is slow and inefficient.
Multiple desktops are fine for keeping windows/tasks organized. But I'm talking about speeding up access to the windows you want once you already know which windows you want.
It is more efficient to "alt+1" edit code, "alt+2" edit config", "alt+3" run it, "alt+4" look at the logs, "alt+5" "google", "alt+6" read email message with the bug report.
At any point of time you can go straight to the "edit code" window by pressing alt+1.
Once you are done with that particular Task, you can click on another set of windows and press alt+0 or alt+"-" to create a new stack/list of windows that are referred to by alt+1 to alt+9.
e.g. alt+F1 = photo/picture editor alt+F2 = photo editor doc #1 alt+F3 = photo editor doc #2 alt+F4 = File manager listing a bunch of textures you are working on. alt+F5 = 3D scene renderer (where you test the textures out to see how it looks in "virtual life":) ).
If you have seen expert starcraft players play, you will know that some humans are capable of sustaining a very high rate of "actions per second.
The current popular GUI interfaces are rather inefficient.
The "g-speak" stuff may be good for some niches, but something like my proposal can speed things up in most cases.
It is good to have an interface that "noobs" can learn easily but it should also allow expert users to work much faster.
But I want to directly go to a particular _window_ with a key combo NOT go to a desktop or "space".
Going to a desktop/space or popping up a list of windows for selection is a _waste_ of time if I already know exactly which window I want.
I suggest that most people are able to remember more than 2 windows AND also often work with more than 2 windows at a time. Alt-tab only works quickly for working with 2 windows - it is clumsy for more.
Multiple desktops are useful for keeping the windows organized, but once you know which windows you want to work with in a particular context, it would be faster my way.
I do not want to have to lift my hand from the keyboard and use the mouse to pick windows - because that would be much slower.
What you do is just click on all the windows you want then press the "renumber stack" key (perhaps there should be a "reverse renumber stack" key to allow people to choose between clicking on the windows in order and in reverse order. Maybe winkey+0 and winkey+"-".
Actually from games like starcraft, you can see that sustained and peak "actions per second" can be quite important. An interface that can let you increase that will be great.
Thing is, maybe just a keyboard and _two_ mice (each with a fair number of mouse buttons) and some optional foot pedals would do far more in increasing the sustained actions per second than fancy gorilla arm stuff.
For example for an FPS you could have movement control with one mouse and one screen/window. And weapon control with another mouse and window at the same time.
For RTS games one mouse could be used for maintainance and building and the other for attacking.
Two mice + keyboard is a cheap setup. You could easily leave out the foot pedals to cut the cost (they don't add as much bang for buck).
Back in my school days, one form of _punishment_ was being made to hold your hands up or out for many minutes. Imagine if you had to keep your arms extended for so long - talk about asking for a new set of RSI problems.
The full 3-D gesture stuff is overrated.
What would help me a lot more is the ability to quickly switch to a particular window in mind:
Even if you don't have all your windows maximized, it would save a fair bit of time. Alt-Tab only works well if you are switching between two windows.
You can kind of do this on the Linux/BSD console but it's more limited. I'm looking for something like the text console but for the GUI and where you get to pick your "working set" of 9 or so windows from as many windows you have open.
"I challenge you to show me an unregulated market where the government doesn't have its hands in it in some way"
I challenge you to show me a large bunch of people where you don't get a form of government within a few years - whether it's a dictatorship or otherwise.
Similarly given a large market, you will get some form of regulation whether you like it or not.
What people should worry about is not "lots" vs "little" regulation. What they should worry about is good vs bad regulation. With Laws (like code), quality not quantity matters more.
If greedy corporations have the most say in the writing of regulation, the Public are unlikely to get good regulation, after all the creation of regulation that benefits the Public is not going to be one of their top priorities.
If the Public prefer to vote for politicians/legislators who got the most money from greedy corporations, it should be no surprise what is likely to happen...
You forgot that the Invisible Hand of Adam Smith will reach down and Bless Charity with Holy Money.;)
That's the sort of thing free market economists effectively say anyway:).
Q: How many free market economists does it take to change a light bulb? A: Free market economists don't change lightbulbs - they'll continue writing their papers in the darkness, while waiting for the Invisible Hand to do it.
"no more production except for ideological reasons, or by way of a commercial "
People will still create stuff for fun, pleasure or other reasons (XYZ asked me to and I owe him a favour). In fact I suspect some people have an almost "unbearable" urge or drive to create stuff.
So if an Economist believes production of copyable works will cease just because people can copy it, then he clearly has poor understanding of the Invisible Hand.
And since the Invisible Hand appears to do a lot of the work, it goes to figure the Economist is mostly wasting time when it comes to understanding or explaining the Market...
Copyright is an artificial monopoly and scarcity.
If you could copy a food item 100% atom for atom, at low cost, people will continue to make new recipes or food creations. Best of all there would be no scarcity of food, nor even _good_ food. Yes the food distributors and producers would be unhappy.
But I'm not so sure the food creators would be so unhappy if they could similarly eat other people's stuff for free. Most people are very similar once their stomach is full. Except for the greedy ones - who are never satisfied.
There certainly would be value in _finding_ out which food various groups of people would like. After all when you could try any of billions of recipes, how do you know which one you would like?
So the scarcity would be time - there is just no time for your instance of you to experience it all. And even if you had lots of time - would you want to eat tons of stuff you don't like just to find the few gems? Even if you could make copies of yourself to eat stuff (just like making copies of food), I bet merging/sharing the experiences will be magnitudes harder - so there is no point in doing that.
Plagiarism or fraud should still be discouraged- they both involve lying/dishonesty. Same goes for certain sorts of trademark infringement.
If the bag was supposed to be tethered and it wasn't then it's not really her fault.
As for the glove problem. I'm aware of the pressurized balloon effect in some old astronaut gloves, but it's been about _40_ years right? You sure that it's been FOUR decades and the gloves are still crap?
Perhaps astronauts should use robotic hands with haptic feedback if they can't make decent gloves. One possible method - have the astronauts hands in "control" gloves safely the suit (thus no pressure problem), and the sensors in those gloves control the robotic hands that extend from the suit. Put some "tendons" on the control gloves and you can put the sensors/feedback motors somewhere more convenient.
And if they screw up and stick their "fingers" in the wrong place they don't necessarily lose their real fingers or pressurization.
Maybe I'm expecting too much, but sometimes it just seems as if NASA nowadays is just producing reruns. Just compare what they've done recent years with what was done in the 60s. Mission to Mars, space station, etc.
Build a space station with artificial gravity. Then build a fairly self-sustaining space station with artificial gravity. Then build one that can build something. Then build one that can build another space station without too much help from Earth - from raw materials obtained from asteroids.
If the technology level is such that a "space elevator" is practical, then that sounds like a worthwhile thing to build.
I don't really see the point of sending people to Mars or the Moon. Spend all that energy and mass to fight a planet's gravity, only to go back down into another gravity well AND have to come back up again, what a waste of time and money. Send disposable robots if you want.
Or send an unwanted politician or two. Hold elections/referendums for that if you want, or start a reality TV show - "Vote Them Off The Planet". That way sending humans to Mars/Moon (even just pretending/threatening to;) ) might significantly benefit the world, instead of being a waste of resources.
Slashdot Mirror
It depends on how it's implemented.
:).
Groups could be done this way:
You are allowed to choose arbitrary groups to view results. So if you join the "I love pink ponies" group you will get rather different search rankings from "I'm a Hell's Angel biker".
Google will generate and name some groups by itself.
Users can also create their own groups by weighting a number of other user's POVs on search results.
e.g. Crystal's "Fluffy Bunnies" group could be (3 * ILoveTwilight) + (2 x GirlzRule) + (-1 * GirlsAreGross).
This way if you really like SEO spam, you can always look for a group that likes it, or create one yourself
And Google might say: here are other groups that like these results first.
Sorry... Too lazy to create yet another account :).
:) ).
Anyway the thing is most GUIs already keep track of (all?) the past windows in order of last clicked (removing dupes). This is for the alt tab feature - when you hold down alt and keep pressing and releasing tab, you move backwards in that list, once you release alt you end up with the selected window.
What I'm suggesting for GUIs to do is: when the user presses alt+0 (or winkey+0), just look at that list/stack of past windows, and then assign the most recent 9 to alt+1 to alt+9 (or winkey+1 to winkey+9 or whatever works). The windows stay assigned to those keys until alt+0 is pressed again.
An additional thing: perhaps alt+ "=" (equals sign) followed by alt+number would have the current foreground window replace the corresponding numbered window in the list, so that you can replace windows without doing an alt+0 style renumber (which might be undesirable - once you have stuff nicely remembered
I don't know how easy that is to implement. But I hope at least a fair number of people would find it useful.
This says different: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mars_core_030306.html
Not surprised he had millions in the bank. It's good business if you can keep selling 1 million dollar stuff for 30 million.
;) ), Country at most is a distant 3rd place. Yes they will get that patriotic spirit from time to time, but that's about it.
So what's your point? That he'd stop trying to make lots more money because he already had millions in the bank?
That's hilarious if you knew how a typical chinese businessman thinks.
Most Chinese care about Family and Money (for some - Money first then Family
Just go visit a chinese temple and see what they ask for. Count how many ask for good fortune and $$$, or healing/blessings for their family members, and count how many ask for "China to be blessed".
Take a close look at the Chinese New Year festivities and see what it's all about. The names of the food. The reasons for doing stuff.
Think those chinese in China putting melamine in everything and everywhere were doing it because they loved China? Or hated America? They were doing it to make themselves richer.
I bet if the French government also offered the Taiwanese guy 20 million for the designs, he'd make copies and sell them to both the French and Chinese governments. Unless he was getting enough extra money for an exclusive deal and goodwill.
There are more than two parties. Voters who aren't aware of that have abdicated especially if they don't want to vote for either of the two parties.
If the other parties are worse than the Two and there is nobody better amongst the available citizens who wants to be a candidate, then by definition you are getting the best choice, Democracy is working as well as it can and it's the citizens who are crap.
If there indeed is a better candidate, then vote for him/her.
In the 2004 election, approximately 62 million voted for Bush, 59 million for Kerry, and about 78+ million eligible to vote didn't bother to vote.
In the 2008 election, 67M for Obama, 59M for McCain, and about 70M didn't bother.
If those 70+ million figured that someone else was better, even if their votes were split in two or three, I bet the Two parties would start paying a bit more attention and might shift their position accordingly.
As it is, why should the Two parties bother? Between the two of them they've got the support of 98-99% of the voters who can be bothered to vote.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2004
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2008
The people are getting what they voted for.
"Chinese ppl are happy to see their country coming up"
;) ) are very happy to sell it to the Chinese government, for the right price.
And that Taiwanese guy was also "all too happy" to sell something that costs 1 million to the Chinese Government for 30 million.
30 million dollars. Not 2 million, not 1.5 million.
Oh yeah, it was because of patriotism or "The Love of China" that he gave them 50% off the original price of 60 million. That must be it eh?
Given what I know of Chinese people, it's far more likely that the Taiwanese guy was just seeing it as a great business opportunity - a chance to make lots of money.
You were the one with the "love for your country (or other thing)" which got in the way.
The Chinese government was willing to pay for US secrets. And chinese people (and other free market loving people
"I was actually shocked since I considered him Tawainese and would not do that"
Why wouldn't he do that? He's Taiwanese not American. Selling US tech to China _might_ only negatively affect Taiwan in the future, and even if it did, he and his family would have millions in the bank - so they could move to Australia or Singapore or wherever.
You appear to be joining the dots the wrong way.
"The people very loudly clamored against that, to no avail"
Bush still got reelected.
So either the voters didn't object to it that much, or the elections got significantly Diebolded...
You will have a problem as long as voters keep voting for candidates mainly because those candidates get a lot of money from greedy companies. Go figure.
Democracy is window dressing if the voters abdicate. Which is what many do.
It's Christmas soon. You could give it to someone. They might even find that they like it :).
If there's a better way than using a keyboard to get text from my mind to a computer, I'll be happy to use it. But the mouse sure isn't it. For "pointing" the mouse is far far better than the keyboard, but much "office" work will be faster if you can reduce the need to use the mouse.
Brain-computer interfaces still have some way to go.
"You'd have to launch some sort of program to select and remember sequential multiple windows"
That program is normally called a GUI.
Go to a machine with windows, hold down the Alt key, then press and release the Tab key while keeping the Alt key held down. You will see a list of tasks/windows.
Observe the order they are arranged.
Yes, bizarre indeed.
As for "less than one second" = geek neurosis.
Try this:
Get someone to time how long it takes for you to switch amongst a set of three or four windows (e.g. A->B->C->A->D->B ). How many milliseconds per window switch?
In that time, how many times can you press alt-tab? How many milliseconds per window switch?
Now look at a skilled nongeek worker use a terminal. They can really learn to do stuff fast. Shortcut keys/hotkeys etc.
The problem is with current popular GUIs switching from one window to another is slow compared to what these people can achieve. And that means millions of humans are not being as augmented as much as they could.
For many computer games an extra lag of 300 milliseconds is considered poor. I don't see why we should have such low standards for GUIs that millions will have to use (or endure).
"If this is a feature you want badly, then just do it"
I've already submitted the bug report.
When I go to a restaurant and if I think they can do something better, I tell them. I don't go home, figure out how to cook the same dish better and present the new recipe back to them.
After all:
1) I'm unlikely to be as good as the chef in his area of expertise.
2) If they don't like my suggestion, there's no point for me wasting all that time only for them to reject my recipe. Even if the new recipe benefits me, it won't benefit the restaurant or other diners.
3) I have other things to do.
"if the windows you work with really change that often, then how could you possibly remember which is which with any sort of reliability?"
Why not? Go look at that slashdot poll. So many people have 20+ tabs open. And most people can keep about four to seven items in their short term mem (if they need to remember more they tend to group multiple items into one item). When they start working with a particular subset, they'll remember them. Then when they switch to a different subset, they'll remember that too. Having to repeatedly search for an item amongst 20+ items is a waste of time.
"Lose the Usenet underscores. They're obnoxious."
And you're the one mentioning "neurosis" and "obnoxious". Ironic.
VM stuff is nice, but sometimes you need to have the "real thing" - sometimes stuff performs significantly differently when virtualized. Some VM stuff don't have good database performance.
:).
With two machines if you're doing web/database, one can be the client and the other can be the server.
No point getting "monster" stuff if you mean "high end", since it's diminishing returns once you get above a certain point.
Machines with 2GB or even 4GB of RAM aren't that expensive nowadays.
What I suggest you get are extra drives, and preferably easily removable/swappable drives.
Then you could have huge drives (good GB per $$$) with virtual machines in them, and you could swap them out for cheaper smaller drives with "real machines" in them and test different O/Ses and configurations without having to waste time reinstalling and updating.
A 3rd machine would be nice - so you can do work or post on slashdot etc without affecting your "real machine" benchmark tests
The problem is it's _SLOW_.
...
Moving from keyboard to mouse and back again = slow
Having to press the same key multiple times (e.g. left arrow, left arrow or tab tab tab) = slow.
I prefer to waste time on stuff of my choice than waste time fiddling with the GUI.
The utilities do NOT do what I'm talking about. What they do is very _static_ and SLOW to set up and _change_.
I want it so that if I select windows A, B, C, D, then press alt+0, the four different windows will automatically be assigned:
alt+1 = D
alt+2 = C
alt+3 = B
alt+4 = A
Then once I'm done with A-D, if I then select windows P, Q, R, S, T, U, V and press alt+0, the keys are reassigned to the corresponding windows:
alt+1 = V
alt+2 = U
alt+3 = T
alt+4 = S
alt+5 = R
alt+6 = Q
alt+7 = P
Duplicate window selections overwrite the older selection - e.g. if I select P, then Q, then P, then R, then P then S, it's S, P, R, Q = 1, 2, 3, 4. No multiple mappings for P.
A nongeek might even be able to be taught how to use that.
Lastly having it be a standard part of the GUI is a significant advantage to having it be a custom config (worse if it involves 3rd party software).
If it is as standard as alt-tab, fewer apps would clash with the hotkeys - which means it can be used with more apps - which is the whole point of the feature anyway - being able to do more and faster.
Others may not want to be able to do more stuff and do it faster, but I do, and so that is why I find the lack of this feature a _problem_.
Seems similar for Islam...
The design flaw with Communism (or at least the popular implementation plan) is that the Communist Manifesto states that violence (force) is acceptable[1] for implementing Communism.
When you say violence is OK, what tends to happen is the person capable and willing to exert the most violence rises to the top. That person then becomes Dictator.
Thus violent revolutions are more likely to lead to Dictatorships. And since the popular Communist implementation plan involves violence, it should be no surprise that (all?) Communist Revolutions have led to Dictatorships.
It is rare to find a Dictator who once having obtained great power will gladly relinquish it to the people.
[1] See: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/61/61.txt ;).
Look for "sweeps away by force" "The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions". The German version does not appear to be more "peaceable"
Well maybe you both might be right if the mafia collect protection money from people selling stuff in flea markets ;).
It does NOT do the trick at all, since I cannot go straight to the window I want with a single key combo.
:) ).
Why waste time reading and selecting from an easy-to-read list, when you already know which window you want?
Worse if I still have to lift my hand and move it to the mouse, or press a few more keys - that is slow and inefficient.
Multiple desktops are fine for keeping windows/tasks organized. But I'm talking about speeding up access to the windows you want once you already know which windows you want.
It is more efficient to "alt+1" edit code, "alt+2" edit config", "alt+3" run it, "alt+4" look at the logs, "alt+5" "google", "alt+6" read email message with the bug report.
At any point of time you can go straight to the "edit code" window by pressing alt+1.
Once you are done with that particular Task, you can click on another set of windows and press alt+0 or alt+"-" to create a new stack/list of windows that are referred to by alt+1 to alt+9.
e.g.
alt+F1 = photo/picture editor
alt+F2 = photo editor doc #1
alt+F3 = photo editor doc #2
alt+F4 = File manager listing a bunch of textures you are working on.
alt+F5 = 3D scene renderer (where you test the textures out to see how it looks in "virtual life"
If you have seen expert starcraft players play, you will know that some humans are capable of sustaining a very high rate of "actions per second.
The current popular GUI interfaces are rather inefficient.
The "g-speak" stuff may be good for some niches, but something like my proposal can speed things up in most cases.
It is good to have an interface that "noobs" can learn easily but it should also allow expert users to work much faster.
But I want to directly go to a particular _window_ with a key combo NOT go to a desktop or "space".
Going to a desktop/space or popping up a list of windows for selection is a _waste_ of time if I already know exactly which window I want.
I suggest that most people are able to remember more than 2 windows AND also often work with more than 2 windows at a time. Alt-tab only works quickly for working with 2 windows - it is clumsy for more.
Multiple desktops are useful for keeping the windows organized, but once you know which windows you want to work with in a particular context, it would be faster my way.
I do not want to have to lift my hand from the keyboard and use the mouse to pick windows - because that would be much slower.
It would be good to be able to quickly set:
winkey+1 = editor #1
winkey+2 = editor #2
winkey+3 = shell
winkey+4 = log of messages
winkey+5 = Documentation page
winkey+6 = RFC
winkey+7 = Browser window #1
winkey+8 = Browser window #2
What you do is just click on all the windows you want then press the "renumber stack" key (perhaps there should be a "reverse renumber stack" key to allow people to choose between clicking on the windows in order and in reverse order. Maybe winkey+0 and winkey+"-".
Actually from games like starcraft, you can see that sustained and peak "actions per second" can be quite important. An interface that can let you increase that will be great.
Thing is, maybe just a keyboard and _two_ mice (each with a fair number of mouse buttons) and some optional foot pedals would do far more in increasing the sustained actions per second than fancy gorilla arm stuff.
For example for an FPS you could have movement control with one mouse and one screen/window. And weapon control with another mouse and window at the same time.
For RTS games one mouse could be used for maintainance and building and the other for attacking.
Two mice + keyboard is a cheap setup. You could easily leave out the foot pedals to cut the cost (they don't add as much bang for buck).
How's the comic offtopic?
Back in my school days, one form of _punishment_ was being made to hold your hands up or out for many minutes. Imagine if you had to keep your arms extended for so long - talk about asking for a new set of RSI problems.
The full 3-D gesture stuff is overrated.
What would help me a lot more is the ability to quickly switch to a particular window in mind:
http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=121349
Even if you don't have all your windows maximized, it would save a fair bit of time. Alt-Tab only works well if you are switching between two windows.
You can kind of do this on the Linux/BSD console but it's more limited. I'm looking for something like the text console but for the GUI and where you get to pick your "working set" of 9 or so windows from as many windows you have open.
"I challenge you to show me an unregulated market where the government doesn't have its hands in it in some way"
I challenge you to show me a large bunch of people where you don't get a form of government within a few years - whether it's a dictatorship or otherwise.
Similarly given a large market, you will get some form of regulation whether you like it or not.
What people should worry about is not "lots" vs "little" regulation. What they should worry about is good vs bad regulation. With Laws (like code), quality not quantity matters more.
If greedy corporations have the most say in the writing of regulation, the Public are unlikely to get good regulation, after all the creation of regulation that benefits the Public is not going to be one of their top priorities.
If the Public prefer to vote for politicians/legislators who got the most money from greedy corporations, it should be no surprise what is likely to happen...
You forgot that the Invisible Hand of Adam Smith will reach down and Bless Charity with Holy Money. ;)
:).
That's the sort of thing free market economists effectively say anyway
Q: How many free market economists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Free market economists don't change lightbulbs - they'll continue writing their papers in the darkness, while waiting for the Invisible Hand to do it.
"no more production except for ideological reasons, or by way of a commercial "
People will still create stuff for fun, pleasure or other reasons (XYZ asked me to and I owe him a favour). In fact I suspect some people have an almost "unbearable" urge or drive to create stuff.
So if an Economist believes production of copyable works will cease just because people can copy it, then he clearly has poor understanding of the Invisible Hand.
And since the Invisible Hand appears to do a lot of the work, it goes to figure the Economist is mostly wasting time when it comes to understanding or explaining the Market...
Copyright is an artificial monopoly and scarcity.
If you could copy a food item 100% atom for atom, at low cost, people will continue to make new recipes or food creations. Best of all there would be no scarcity of food, nor even _good_ food. Yes the food distributors and producers would be unhappy.
But I'm not so sure the food creators would be so unhappy if they could similarly eat other people's stuff for free. Most people are very similar once their stomach is full. Except for the greedy ones - who are never satisfied.
There certainly would be value in _finding_ out which food various groups of people would like. After all when you could try any of billions of recipes, how do you know which one you would like?
So the scarcity would be time - there is just no time for your instance of you to experience it all. And even if you had lots of time - would you want to eat tons of stuff you don't like just to find the few gems? Even if you could make copies of yourself to eat stuff (just like making copies of food), I bet merging/sharing the experiences will be magnitudes harder - so there is no point in doing that.
Plagiarism or fraud should still be discouraged- they both involve lying/dishonesty. Same goes for certain sorts of trademark infringement.
If the bag was supposed to be tethered and it wasn't then it's not really her fault.
;) ) might significantly benefit the world, instead of being a waste of resources.
As for the glove problem. I'm aware of the pressurized balloon effect in some old astronaut gloves, but it's been about _40_ years right? You sure that it's been FOUR decades and the gloves are still crap?
Perhaps astronauts should use robotic hands with haptic feedback if they can't make decent gloves. One possible method - have the astronauts hands in "control" gloves safely the suit (thus no pressure problem), and the sensors in those gloves control the robotic hands that extend from the suit. Put some "tendons" on the control gloves and you can put the sensors/feedback motors somewhere more convenient.
And if they screw up and stick their "fingers" in the wrong place they don't necessarily lose their real fingers or pressurization.
Maybe I'm expecting too much, but sometimes it just seems as if NASA nowadays is just producing reruns. Just compare what they've done recent years with what was done in the 60s. Mission to Mars, space station, etc.
Build a space station with artificial gravity. Then build a fairly self-sustaining space station with artificial gravity. Then build one that can build something. Then build one that can build another space station without too much help from Earth - from raw materials obtained from asteroids.
If the technology level is such that a "space elevator" is practical, then that sounds like a worthwhile thing to build.
I don't really see the point of sending people to Mars or the Moon. Spend all that energy and mass to fight a planet's gravity, only to go back down into another gravity well AND have to come back up again, what a waste of time and money. Send disposable robots if you want.
Or send an unwanted politician or two. Hold elections/referendums for that if you want, or start a reality TV show - "Vote Them Off The Planet". That way sending humans to Mars/Moon (even just pretending/threatening to
A world wide grid makes me think about botnets, malware and spam.
:).
That's me - seeing the dark lining in cloud computing
But that's probably even less accurate than saying milk smells and tastes like limburger cheese.
Which would you rather her to call you?
a) pet woolly mammoth
b) neanderthal
c) dinosaur
d) Fred
e) Cowboy Neal
I think he's going to send it directly to the USD700+ billion bailout fund.
;)
Or maybe some of it will be going to the 578 billion "Defense" fund (which is an "automatic" yearly thing and not special case).
Might as well skip the middle man eh?