Unfortunately the links were down by the time I saw the slashdot article.
I feel so-so about hiding things. I hate the "Hide the _ characters 'til I hold the alt-key paradigm", because it slows me down, I can't start scanning for shortcuts 'til my finger is on the button and in general having the underlined characters there reminds me of the functionality.
I do like windows start menu, and the division of "current tasks" vs "tasks you can start" that Mac lacks... in general Windows has better kbd accelerators than Mac, IMO
I don't think laptops have the same problem with gorilla arm. It's usually a lot easier to reach a laptop screen, based on its connection to the keyboard... I don't even have to lift my elbow off the desk..
I wouldn't mind a Mac version of the Fujitsu Lifebook I have now, w/ touch sensitive screen... and no optical drive. You don't miss it all that much, except then the thing can't be used as DVD player...
It's great on a laptop, where people are closer to the screen by design. I have it on a Fujitsu lifebook, and miss not being able to do simple functions like press a button w/ my finger on other laptops.
What's that old line? Something like "why are we all into terraforming other worlds while we're busy venusforming earth?"
I love the idea of massive engineering projects making useful changes, but also understand that there is going to be a HUGE heap of the law of unintended consequences because these systems are so difficult to model accurately.
"1. Small business is better than home and home office "
This is one prime reason why I never order online from dell. I just have this deep feeling that they shouldn't care about why I'm buying this computer... just give me the best deal, which frankly, ain't gonna very that much whether I'm a big company or joe blow. (Yes, I know bulk purchasers et bulk discounts, but still)
So that, plus, call me old fashioned, but if it's a model I don't know, I need to touch and feel the formfactor first hand, especially for laptops.
It's pretty standard here to take the title or first paragraph or so of the patent description and jump to the assumption that this is all they have. But this is almost always wrong.
That also doesn't mean that software patents are *right*.
More so than a lot of other professions, programmers entire job is to sit and think of ways of doing things. I think the standard for "non-obvious" should be much, much stricter for such a cerebral and abstract pursuit.
However, the process of not removing someone from a mailing list upon their request can be considered harassment.
I think it gets trickier when the recipient might be afraid of a perfectly legitimate mailing list removal feature, because of the uncertainty of reputation. If it just confirms a valid email address. There's just too much anonymity and wild players for that to work.
Geeks might not want the same things "ordinary" users want, but sometimes it's tough to predict what hits a sweet spot. For instance, OS/UI familiarity can be a big factor especially w/ laptop-y things; on the other hand, Blackberries caught on pretty well, so there are some other sweet spots to be found.
I think for a lot of people it's not full shutdown, but time to suspend and resume. I think the sys admin challenges comes from trying to synch Palm w/ Outlook and other MS crap. If you don't need that, and rely on Palm's excellently UI'd software, it's pretty IT friendly.
Yeah, I have a Fujitsu 15010D. It was a bit pricey, but I've grown to like it, especially being able to poke at buttons w/o the stylus directly onscreen, and as a doodle pa...
Oh wait, the Foleo doesn't have a frickin' touch screen? Forget it. My interest level just went from high to near nil.
I'm becoming more aware of the niche of "living room laptops" and "bedroom laptops", basically web connectivity terminals that you don't even have to carry from room to room, and maybe this could replace one of those, but it's competing with cheap older iBooks from ebay. A touchscreen would make it more of a standout in the field.
I'm sure it's been said, but the OS matters so much less than it used to... if you get used to Firefox and most of your important apps are web-based (or something agnostic, like an ssh window) then your platform is almost an afterthought.
That said, using Linux on my desktop at work w/ Gnome, it seems obvious to me that Linux trails XP in terms of attention to UI detail. And I don't just mean the ways Windows has warped my expectations... there are specific things that Windows does better (especially in terms of keyboard support) that Gnome doesn't, at least w/o a lot of tweaking.
I'm assuming it's a HUGELY greater volume of email... from pseudo-dictionary based spam runs to bounce backs meant for the asshole whole sullied your good name by sending mail from sdkgbskpbg@yourdomain.com
My gmail 30 day spam box usually has between 70K-90K messages in it.
Hmm. You're obviously entitled to your opinion, and it has been a while, but I remember liking the 2D sword combat in particular, the up/down shield, high thrust/low thrust part...
(have not yet RTFA, just responding to the summary) The funny thing is, even the jump from 2D to 3D was a lot less of a paradigm shift than with, say, Mario or Metroid... I kind of missed out on the original Zelda, but liked Zelda 2 a lot.
My next games was Zelda:OoT. When after that i went back to the first game, I was amazed at how similar the dungeon puzzles etc felt!
Unlike Mario and Metroid, early Zelda was in a kind of 3/4 perspective, with a few light 3D-ish elements. So it's just not that big a shift. (FWIW, I feel the same way about GTA2->GTA3)
Actually, Zelda 2 is probably the stand out of the lot, a bigger difference than the 2D/3D switch...
Heh... I remember some earlier interview where he talked about it as an example of a game you couldn't do on the Atari 2600.... but then later I saw a fairly decent port. (To be fair, they may have been having bigger ROMs to work with by then...)
2. This games sounds like... I dunno, if they do it right, I could almost see something like a Conker's Bad Fur Day... (an underrated title, IMO-- the writing and voice acting were pretty bad, but the mini-game-ish scenes (usually more like boss fights) were very decent, and with pop-culture references galore.
Yeah, I was going to comment on "Computer users, on the other hand, must constantly upgrade their hardware just to keep pace with software and services". It's a lie, I've been happy treating my PCs as largely un-upgraded blackboxes since 1995 or so. A little memory here, a TV card there... that's it. With laptops its even more so. At this point very old and cheap computers are totally adequate for web -centric use.
I think this comment is right on, in terms of not even getting the "why bother" aspect for PCs. If you don't care much about the web or get your fill in an office job, use phone rather than e-mail... it's just not that exciting, as hard as it is for us Google, Googlemaps, Wikipedia, and LJ addicts to believe.
And using all the features...Hell, actually, with the latest generation of video game consoles, even I'm losing track of the bells and whistles. Could my Xbox 360 play a DVD for me in a pinch without extra hardware? Dunno! And the number of devices that want to be photo browsers for me, from Wii to iPod, is just stupid.
I think the question was artistic, wanting to tell a certain story rather than having the player make it up. (And even then it was a transition; GTA3 still had a silent protagonist)
Plus, the cut scenes in GTA are a lot more varied than in Mercenaries, which are little more than the simple mission briefings (IIRC) with a few lines of color before and after, like if you go up to the surrounding soldiers. That's been around for YEARS.
Also, I dunno... in mercenaries I played every mission. Really, the only question is what order I felt like taking them in. I was under the impression that what side you ally with in GTA2 can then restrict what missions you can get, but I'm not sure.
I've also heard that GTA1 kept a count of the cops in the city, and eventually they would run out...
Slashdot Mirror
Unfortunately the links were down by the time I saw the slashdot article.
I feel so-so about hiding things. I hate the "Hide the _ characters 'til I hold the alt-key paradigm", because it slows me down, I can't start scanning for shortcuts 'til my finger is on the button and in general having the underlined characters there reminds me of the functionality.
I do like windows start menu, and the division of "current tasks" vs "tasks you can start" that Mac lacks... in general Windows has better kbd accelerators than Mac, IMO
I don't think laptops have the same problem with gorilla arm. It's usually a lot easier to reach a laptop screen, based on its connection to the keyboard... I don't even have to lift my elbow off the desk..
I wouldn't mind a Mac version of the Fujitsu Lifebook I have now, w/ touch sensitive screen... and no optical drive.
You don't miss it all that much, except then the thing can't be used as DVD player...
It's great on a laptop, where people are closer to the screen by design. I have it on a Fujitsu lifebook, and miss not being able to do simple functions like press a button w/ my finger on other laptops.
What's that old line? Something like "why are we all into terraforming other worlds while we're busy venusforming earth?"
I love the idea of massive engineering projects making useful changes, but also understand that there is going to be a HUGE heap of the law of unintended consequences because these systems are so difficult to model accurately.
"1. Small business is better than home and home office "
This is one prime reason why I never order online from dell. I just have this deep feeling that they shouldn't care about why I'm buying this computer... just give me the best deal, which frankly, ain't gonna very that much whether I'm a big company or joe blow. (Yes, I know bulk purchasers et bulk discounts, but still)
So that, plus, call me old fashioned, but if it's a model I don't know, I need to touch and feel the formfactor first hand, especially for laptops.
Micro Center in Cambridge ahoy!
It's pretty standard here to take the title or first paragraph or so of the patent description and jump to the assumption that this is all they have. But this is almost always wrong.
That also doesn't mean that software patents are *right*.
More so than a lot of other professions, programmers entire job is to sit and think of ways of doing things. I think the standard for "non-obvious" should be much, much stricter for such a cerebral and abstract pursuit.
However, the process of not removing someone from a mailing list upon their request can be considered harassment.
I think it gets trickier when the recipient might be afraid of a perfectly legitimate mailing list removal feature, because of the uncertainty of reputation. If it just confirms a valid email address. There's just too much anonymity and wild players for that to work.
Geeks might not want the same things "ordinary" users want, but sometimes it's tough to predict what hits a sweet spot. For instance, OS/UI familiarity can be a big factor especially w/ laptop-y things; on the other hand, Blackberries caught on pretty well, so there are some other sweet spots to be found.
I think for a lot of people it's not full shutdown, but time to suspend and resume.
I think the sys admin challenges comes from trying to synch Palm w/ Outlook and other MS crap. If you don't need that, and rely on Palm's excellently UI'd software, it's pretty IT friendly.
Does anyone know why the hell that is?
Did they (MS) fiddle w/ the USB?
Yeah, I have a Fujitsu 15010D. It was a bit pricey, but I've grown to like it, especially being able to poke at buttons w/o the stylus directly onscreen, and as a doodle pa...
Oh wait, the Foleo doesn't have a frickin' touch screen? Forget it. My interest level just went from high to near nil.
I'm becoming more aware of the niche of "living room laptops" and "bedroom laptops", basically web connectivity terminals that you don't even have to carry from room to room, and maybe this could replace one of those, but it's competing with cheap older iBooks from ebay. A touchscreen would make it more of a standout in the field.
DVDs in cases look pretty decent on a book shelf.
CDs generally don't, especially the cheap shiny plastic kind.
Same goes for console video games.
I'm sure it's been said, but the OS matters so much less than it used to...
:-P
if you get used to Firefox and most of your important apps are web-based
(or something agnostic, like an ssh window) then your platform is almost an afterthought.
That said, using Linux on my desktop at work w/ Gnome, it seems obvious to me that Linux trails XP in terms of attention to UI detail. And I don't just mean the ways Windows has warped my expectations... there are specific things that Windows does better (especially in terms of keyboard support) that Gnome doesn't, at least w/o a lot of tweaking.
And OSX doesn't have irfanview
I'm assuming it's a HUGELY greater volume of email... from pseudo-dictionary based spam runs to bounce backs meant for the asshole whole sullied your good name by sending mail from sdkgbskpbg@yourdomain.com
My gmail 30 day spam box usually has between 70K-90K messages in it.
SPAMMERS BURN IN HELL.
Not if you redirect all the mail from a domain you own into our gmail account. Plenty slips through, especially bounces from Joe-Jobs.
Hmm. You're obviously entitled to your opinion, and it has been a while, but I remember liking the 2D sword combat in particular, the up/down shield, high thrust/low thrust part...
(have not yet RTFA, just responding to the summary)
The funny thing is, even the jump from 2D to 3D was a lot less of a paradigm shift than with, say, Mario or Metroid...
I kind of missed out on the original Zelda, but liked Zelda 2 a lot.
My next games was Zelda:OoT. When after that i went back to the first game, I was amazed at how similar the dungeon puzzles etc felt!
Unlike Mario and Metroid, early Zelda was in a kind of 3/4 perspective, with a few light 3D-ish elements. So it's just not that big a shift. (FWIW, I feel the same way about GTA2->GTA3)
Actually, Zelda 2 is probably the stand out of the lot, a bigger difference than the 2D/3D switch...
Wonder if they'll ever get around to a nice tablet MacBook type device, or if the shadow of Newton haunts them still...
Heh... I remember some earlier interview where he talked about it as an example of a game you couldn't do on the Atari 2600.... but then later I saw a fairly decent port. (To be fair, they may have been having bigger ROMs to work with by then...)
Agreed that the controls were pretty good.
And I liked the target quick for a bad shot, wait a second to refine the targetting...
I figure the best way to keep things from getting settled is to tie the hands of researchers. ...kinky!
1. This post sounds a bit like a press release.
2. This games sounds like... I dunno, if they do it right, I could almost see something like a Conker's Bad Fur Day... (an underrated title, IMO-- the writing and voice acting were pretty bad, but the mini-game-ish scenes (usually more like boss fights) were very decent, and with pop-culture references galore.
Yeah, I was going to comment on "Computer users, on the other hand, must constantly upgrade their hardware just to keep pace with software and services". It's a lie, I've been happy treating my PCs as largely un-upgraded blackboxes since 1995 or so. A little memory here, a TV card there... that's it. With laptops its even more so. At this point very old and cheap computers are totally adequate for web -centric use.
I think this comment is right on, in terms of not even getting the "why bother" aspect for PCs. If you don't care much about the web or get your fill in an office job, use phone rather than e-mail... it's just not that exciting, as hard as it is for us Google, Googlemaps, Wikipedia, and LJ addicts to believe.
And using all the features...Hell, actually, with the latest generation of video game consoles, even I'm losing track of the bells and whistles. Could my Xbox 360 play a DVD for me in a pinch without extra hardware? Dunno! And the number of devices that want to be photo browsers for me, from Wii to iPod, is just stupid.
It doesn't beg the question, it raises it :-)
I think the question was artistic, wanting to tell a certain story rather than having the player make it up. (And even then it was a transition; GTA3 still had a silent protagonist)
Plus, the cut scenes in GTA are a lot more varied than in Mercenaries, which are little more than the simple mission briefings (IIRC) with a few lines of color before and after, like if you go up to the surrounding soldiers. That's been around for YEARS.
Also, I dunno... in mercenaries I played every mission. Really, the only question is what order I felt like taking them in. I was under the impression that what side you ally with in GTA2 can then restrict what missions you can get, but I'm not sure.
I've also heard that GTA1 kept a count of the cops in the city, and eventually they would run out...