And now someone's trying to beat you down 'cause it's Offtopic (it'll grow back)
Anyway, once you start getting the +1 Bonus, you start getting more attention anyway, from people who read at +2, so it's much easier to make your second 25 than your first.
(if memory serves...I might be getting some of the details of function name wrong) For instance, the way each() and all that uses a pointer that's part of the array, and you need to call reset() on the array if you want to iterate over it twice! In general, side effects like that aren't considered a positive part of a language.
This is kind of fixed if you use foreach() instead, and I found a bug in the docs, where it said using each() was the equivalent of foreach()...similarly, there was a bug when I was walking one array inside another array using each(), it would stop after the first outerloop. Using foreach() fixed it.
That kind of thing is just ridiculous in a language that wants to be considered ready for primetime.
(not karma whoring, just rambling) I've always liked the concept of lowend digital photography: Starting with a kodak DC20...amazing light (like, hollow) small camera, 16 320x240 (or 8 493x373, never messed with that tho). Lasted forever on one of its little batteries. Got some decent shots from it.
Then later got a kodak palmpix add on to my Palm IIIc...not quite convenient/small enough to justify its drawbacks as a camera, though using the Palm as a viewfinder was kind of a trip.
My friend got a cart so he could upload pictures from his game boy camera.
I loved those old b+w quickcams, made some tiny animated GIFs out of them.
And now this...of course, now I have a tiny Canon elph powershot in my pocket at all times...but it's a bit bulky...maybe I should compromise and go for this new thing, who needs good resolution anyway? (But then I'd hardly ever use the canon, argh...)
I'm not sure if it's a "Toy", but it has a lot of attributes that seem like they're there because they made life a lot easier for the developer of thelanguage, not for the "end user developer"...especially with the variable scoping w/ functions vs. classes and all of that. (Irregularities in case sensitivty is another thing I think)
Also, I found the error messages a lot less helpful than with some other languages.
Just to be a twit: isn't CGI the generic standard? Possibly, "Perl CGI" is less used than it used to be, (which is an interesting groundshift, one of the first non-MS developments that I'm behind the curve on--PHP seems really kludgey in parts to me, though I respect its builtin libraries) but I think just about every form in HTML points to a "Common Gateway Interface" script, you know, the thing about POSTs and GETs.
The strength of this scenario is that it is exactly the type of marketplace the net is suited for..com everything might have overloaded people with the notion that get online and you will find piles of useless companies that don't belong there, but it never really hit the sites like e-bay hard.
But it's interesting to think that there isn't room for too many ebays...there may be other auction sites, but it seems that none are going to come close to the 800lb gorilla. I mean, I think a lot of people think ideally, there might be just one auction site for the whole internet. (So maybe there's some room for bargain hunting on the other sites?)
Fair enough point about suped up features leading to less battery life, but for the time being at least Palm is keeping up with lowend models that probably have pretty much the same balance of features (battery life vs gizmos) as the earlier models.
Like other people are pointing out, it's all about tradeoffs...with batteries being the single biggest slow-to-improve technology stumbling block. Chemical batteries just haven't advanced the way other parts of PDAs have over the past decade or so.
Not really, though: I see where you're coming from, but I think the real key to Palm's wonderful simplicity is in its UI. Color Palms, for better or worse, don't make tremendous use of color--generally just getting better readability and color icons, and of course allowing games and image viewers and what not to be in color. The UI is the same, and for my money is about as simple and reliable as ever.
Same thing with "more colours, better resolution, more MP3, full feature video": if there are seperate MP3 and video apps, and the UI is the same as always (without CE's "i think i'm a small desktop" mistakes, and "Aqua"-like "enhancements") then what does it hurt?
It's always a set of trade-offs. If you want really robust, really simple, you mighta been happy with one of those old school keyboard/character based PDAs...a few even offer synching to the desktop. Palm needs to keep pushing its capabilities, since eventually those gee-whiz features will be cheap enough (in terms of battery life and usability) to make sense.
Of course, the super hightech feature I'm really jonesing for is a clipboard that can hold an entire memo (and maybe ditch the 4k memo limit while they're at it...) I mean, Microsoft finally made Notepad so it didn't choke on 32K files, can't Palm do the same?
Am I the only one who sees OGRE and thinks of giant tanks?
Re:Perl's had it's day - It's become like COBOL
on
Apocalypse 5 Released
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
As a developer who has done a reasonable amount of Perl and Java, the choice of when to use one or the other is becoming more and more interesting.
Sometimes, it's just a matter of environment: the places I host my websites have Perl available, (sometimes Java, but it's more of a pain) so that tends to be my first choice.
There's a lot to be said for the convenience of Perl. Edit code, save, and run has benefits greater than you'd expect by just seeing that edit, save, compile, run is one extra step. (And pushing that one step further, the sheer # of files is one of the things that's a huge drawback to EJBs...)
And of course there's what the language makes simpler. I know there are Java classes that give it full Perl regexes and the like, but somehow they seem evil to me. I don't like to go crazy with the Perl syntax shortcuts, but being able to so easily open up files and the like, and not have to jump through hoops to read a line at a time...there's a lot to be said for that.
On the other hand, OO in Perl is pretty disgusting to anyone who grew up with objects in C++ and Java. It even makes PHP's object syntax look normal.
So, in the end, I don't know. It certainly seems easier to sell my Java skills in today's ugly jobmarket, and it certainly seems easier to update my personal websites in Perl. For now, I guess I'll be keeping up my skills in both.
I only played a little bit with the first generation they released, and only using that bad visual block language it came bundled with. But one problem I see is that you couldn't specify exact degree turns or amount of motion consistently. For instance, there'd be no way to make a robot that consistently turned 90 degrees and went forward X inches; you're forced into a more biological, reactive method of programming. That's not an entirely bad thing, though it ramps up the level of difficulty, especially in that original block language, don't know about these later ones.
I am getting at the point that you seem opposed to having a tabbed browser add menu options to the existing right click feature, yet you don't seem to mind having your OS add extra menus to your taskber buttons.
Well, they seem like different issues: extra context menu items slow me down by giving me more choices that I have to look at, but don't really want.
The taskbar thing...well, it's neat because it's on-demand, on only there when the alternative would a bunch of small, difficult to use buttons.
Additionally, in linux, you don't have to right click and select from a menu to open a new browser window, you just middle click.
Huh. I think this is a browser/window manager specific thing. Currently it seems like 3 buttons is too many (esp with a scrollwheel) but I imagine I could get used to it.
Umm, precisely the benefit of tabbed browser chief and there is no need for me to open a taskbar menu and read through it to find my page of choice.
Well, see, the XP thing works when I have many open AIM windows, or explorer windows, or SSH windows, or anything. It's nice to have the same functionality for any app. Also, since I tend to think of browsers open to different sites as "different tasks", not "different views of one task", it's makes sense to have one "task bar" instead of two (i.e. a virtual second "taskbar" of tabs...)
All my web pages are easily selectable from the main browser window. No extra menus or crowded taskbars.
Like I said, maybe you think of different websites as different windows of your main browser task.
I guess my issue with your post is the double speak. You promote having to open an additional taskbar icon menu to see your compressed options as a feature of XP's taskbar. However, you seem to be repulsed at the idea of having right click menus add a few features like open in new tab (foreground/backdround)
I also don't like the idea of a tab-bar taking yet more screen space. The extra options in the context menu is a minor point anyway, just one of several small reasons why I don't like MDI for browsers. Or in general!
So which is it? Is more clicks and menus better? Or is less clicks and menus better? I prefer less clicks and menus to move around.
Less click when you have fewer windows and more clicks *when you need 'em* seems ideal to me.
A tabbed browser eliminates the toolbar clutter, speeds page switching, eliminates desktop clutter. Ever had 25 web pages open at once? Kinda tough on the desktop useability with SDI browsers.
That's my point...25 windows is no longer tough on desktop usability with the grouping that XP does! And it's a solution that works with every app I have.
I was not trying to imply that you used the toy os thing. That line just came across wrong. It was a general comment with toy quoted as that has been applied to linux before and my opinion is that in many areas linux offers better useability than windows. Bill
Again, it sounds like you might be mixing up the mouse use of a browser vs what the OS itself provides. Actually, I think Linux's problem might be that it's the opposite of a toy OS! I've been using Unix for 8 years now, and for server work I hate using anything else. But I think Windows moved a step ahead of both Mac and Linux taskbar/windows management UI with Win95, and has been a step ahead ever since.
Oh, are you using an OS that makes you click more than once and select from a menu to open a new window?
Err, I can left click on a link, or right click and select to open the link in a new window. (Or I can hit ctrl-n for a brand new window) what are you getting at anyway?
How exactly do you define clever? So let's see, you have 14 web pages open and before you can determine what they contain, you have to move to the OS toolbar and then click it to get a menu and then search the menu to find the doc you want and then click that? Gee, that really is clever!
Err...it's better than a bunch of tiny little buttons, with the browser's icons scattered among other apps, none of which are big enough to read...I mean, if I don't want it to collapse, I just raise up the taskbar so it has 2 or 3 lines to work with.
It's a good solution, with lots of configurable options to stick with the old behavior if you so desire. I haven't played with many Linux window managers, but I haven't seen a system that handles the "iconic view" of running programs as well as XP.
And I never called anything else a "toy" OS. You got pretty snarky without good reason. And it's not the browser that's compressing open windows, it's the OS.
Thanks, but no. I will stick with my "toy" OS that allows a single click to open new windows and with a 4 meg browser that does not compress all my open windows into one clever, hidden mass menu.
I don't see much of a benefit for MDI. (And I hope if it's "only an option", there's a way to hide it, so every time I right click a link I don't get an extra "open in new tab in this window" link along with the usual "open in new window" etc)
With XP and its pretty darn clever taskbar management (group like windows on the taskbar, and then collapsing multiple windows into a single task bar entry and making a little minimenu off of that), this is really not a help for a modern Windows desktop user. (and while I'm biased by my long term exposure to it, I like the new and improved taskbar a lot more then, say, the OS X Dock, with its mix of program launchers and runing programs and way too much motion w/ the default settings)
to back up your point, the N64 controller was huge compared with the snes controller. Makes one think what the future may bring.
(Stale conversation, but what the heck...) ...and the GameCube has about the smallest controller of them all right now. I think it's terrific. Better button differentiation than the Dual Shock, which is also pretty good. (Kudos to N64 for bringing back analog sticks after a long absence!)
That's odd, I thought the consoles were like $700 when they came out...was the tech in them that great for the time?
Not only that, byt XBox/3DO have already diverged, 3DO was trying to get lots of different manufacturers making hardware that could play the same software while still maintaining a "home appliance" feel (i.e. more like VCR manufacture than PC...)
A fair point, especially given Microsoft's past ability to weather poor early releases of software products. (Of course, hardware has a per unit manufacture cost that software doesn't, leading to one of those amusing "losing $100 on every sale but making it up in volume" situations.)
Still, they've already learned from one mistake of having a huuuuge controller and have brought a smaller version to the US market; if they do the same with custom chips ala Sony and/or reducing the size of future units, as well as keep up their relatinships with the game makers, they'll still be a force to be reckoned with.
Lately I've been having some intermitent trouble with the anti-zone; where you just can't get jack-squat done. You hit slashdot, Usenet, go through various sites, anything but the task as hand.
I'm getting it under control, but sometimes there's just this huge inertia you have to overcome. But luckily that's intertia in both the difficult-to-start form AND the easy-to-keep-going senses of the term.
It looked like the Xbox was trying to compete with PS2 headon, with relatively little to differentiate itself, except maybe Halo. While its 3rd party game selection is very healthy (especially compated to GameCube's meager trickle...though Sega Soccer Slam has lightened by view by a lot recently) it is having to try to build all its franchises from scratch, and doesn't have the stable of guaranteed gaming wonders that Nintendo provides for its faithful.
But competing with the PS2 on its own turf? That's tough.
A: This is nothing new, my cousin's friend knew a guy who did something vaguely similar once before. B: This can't possibly work because it has no foundation.
Well, actually, that's not a terrible, if somewhat overly conservative, viewpoint to have...for most problems in the real world, smart people have been trying to solve them with varying degrees of success, and I'd wager that most of the useful work is evolutionary, not revolutionary, so this pair of responses aren't as bad as you seem to imply.
Robert Abbot's piece Video Games Are Incredibly Stupid! touches many of the same themes, and was making the rounds a month or two ago. You can see my studied (and illustrated) response back, and he's also posted many of the replies he has received.
Slashdot Mirror
And now someone's trying to beat you down 'cause it's Offtopic (it'll grow back)
Anyway, once you start getting the +1 Bonus, you start getting more attention anyway, from people who read at +2, so it's much easier to make your second 25 than your first.
(if memory serves...I might be getting some of the details of function name wrong)
For instance, the way each() and all that uses a pointer that's part of the array, and you need to call reset() on the array if you want to iterate over it twice! In general, side effects like that aren't considered a positive part of a language.
This is kind of fixed if you use foreach() instead, and I found a bug in the docs, where it said using each() was the equivalent of foreach()...similarly, there was a bug when I was walking one array inside another array using each(), it would stop after the first outerloop. Using foreach() fixed it.
That kind of thing is just ridiculous in a language that wants to be considered ready for primetime.
(not karma whoring, just rambling)
I've always liked the concept of lowend digital photography:
Starting with a kodak DC20...amazing light (like, hollow) small camera, 16 320x240 (or 8 493x373, never messed with that tho). Lasted forever on one of its little batteries. Got some decent shots from it.
Then later got a kodak palmpix add on to my Palm IIIc...not quite convenient/small enough to justify its drawbacks as a camera, though using the Palm as a viewfinder was kind of a trip.
My friend got a cart so he could upload pictures from his game boy camera.
I loved those old b+w quickcams, made some tiny animated GIFs out of them.
And now this...of course, now I have a tiny Canon elph powershot in my pocket at all times...but it's a bit bulky...maybe I should compromise and go for this new thing, who needs good resolution anyway? (But then I'd hardly ever use the canon, argh...)
I'm not sure if it's a "Toy", but it has a lot of attributes that seem like they're there because they made life a lot easier for the developer of thelanguage, not for the "end user developer"...especially with the variable scoping w/ functions vs. classes and all of that. (Irregularities in case sensitivty is another thing I think)
Also, I found the error messages a lot less helpful than with some other languages.
Just to be a twit:
isn't CGI the generic standard? Possibly, "Perl CGI" is less used than it used to be, (which is an interesting groundshift, one of the first non-MS developments that I'm behind the curve on--PHP seems really kludgey in parts to me, though I respect its builtin libraries) but I think just about every form in HTML points to a "Common Gateway Interface" script, you know, the thing about POSTs and GETs.
The strength of this scenario is that it is exactly the type of marketplace the net is suited for. .com everything might have overloaded people with the notion that get online and you will find piles of useless companies that don't belong there, but it never really hit the sites like e-bay hard.
But it's interesting to think that there isn't room for too many ebays...there may be other auction sites, but it seems that none are going to come close to the 800lb gorilla. I mean, I think a lot of people think ideally, there might be just one auction site for the whole internet. (So maybe there's some room for bargain hunting on the other sites?)
Fair enough point about suped up features leading to less battery life, but for the time being at least Palm is keeping up with lowend models that probably have pretty much the same balance of features (battery life vs gizmos) as the earlier models.
Like other people are pointing out, it's all about tradeoffs...with batteries being the single biggest slow-to-improve technology stumbling block. Chemical batteries just haven't advanced the way other parts of PDAs have over the past decade or so.
Ok, you're a luddite.
Not really, though: I see where you're coming from, but I think the real key to Palm's wonderful simplicity is in its UI. Color Palms, for better or worse, don't make tremendous use of color--generally just getting better readability and color icons, and of course allowing games and image viewers and what not to be in color. The UI is the same, and for my money is about as simple and reliable as ever.
Same thing with "more colours, better resolution, more MP3, full feature video": if there are seperate MP3 and video apps, and the UI is the same as always (without CE's "i think i'm a small desktop" mistakes, and "Aqua"-like "enhancements") then what does it hurt?
It's always a set of trade-offs. If you want really robust, really simple, you mighta been happy with one of those old school keyboard/character based PDAs...a few even offer synching to the desktop. Palm needs to keep pushing its capabilities, since eventually those gee-whiz features will be cheap enough (in terms of battery life and usability) to make sense.
Of course, the super hightech feature I'm really jonesing for is a clipboard that can hold an entire memo (and maybe ditch the 4k memo limit while they're at it...) I mean, Microsoft finally made Notepad so it didn't choke on 32K files, can't Palm do the same?
Am I the only one who sees OGRE and thinks of giant tanks?
As a developer who has done a reasonable amount of Perl and Java, the choice of when to use one or the other is becoming more and more interesting.
Sometimes, it's just a matter of environment: the places I host my websites have Perl available, (sometimes Java, but it's more of a pain) so that tends to be my first choice.
There's a lot to be said for the convenience of Perl. Edit code, save, and run has benefits greater than you'd expect by just seeing that edit, save, compile, run is one extra step. (And pushing that one step further, the sheer # of files is one of the things that's a huge drawback to EJBs...)
And of course there's what the language makes simpler. I know there are Java classes that give it full Perl regexes and the like, but somehow they seem evil to me. I don't like to go crazy with the Perl syntax shortcuts, but being able to so easily open up files and the like, and not have to jump through hoops to read a line at a time...there's a lot to be said for that.
On the other hand, OO in Perl is pretty disgusting to anyone who grew up with objects in C++ and Java. It even makes PHP's object syntax look normal.
So, in the end, I don't know. It certainly seems easier to sell my Java skills in today's ugly jobmarket, and it certainly seems easier to update my personal websites in Perl. For now, I guess I'll be keeping up my skills in both.
I only played a little bit with the first generation they released, and only using that bad visual block language it came bundled with. But one problem I see is that you couldn't specify exact degree turns or amount of motion consistently. For instance, there'd be no way to make a robot that consistently turned 90 degrees and went forward X inches; you're forced into a more biological, reactive method of programming. That's not an entirely bad thing, though it ramps up the level of difficulty, especially in that original block language, don't know about these later ones.
I am getting at the point that you seem opposed to having a tabbed browser add menu options to the existing right click feature, yet you don't seem to mind having your OS add extra menus to your taskber buttons.
Well, they seem like different issues:
extra context menu items slow me down by giving me more choices that I have to look at, but don't really want.
The taskbar thing...well, it's neat because it's on-demand, on only there when the alternative would a bunch of small, difficult to use buttons.
Additionally, in linux, you don't have to right click and select from a menu to open a new browser window, you just middle click.
Huh. I think this is a browser/window manager specific thing. Currently it seems like 3 buttons is too many (esp with a scrollwheel) but I imagine I could get used to it.
Umm, precisely the benefit of tabbed browser chief and there is no need for me to open a taskbar menu and read through it to find my page of choice.
Well, see, the XP thing works when I have many open AIM windows, or explorer windows, or SSH windows, or anything. It's nice to have the same functionality for any app. Also, since I tend to think of browsers open to different sites as "different tasks", not "different views of one task", it's makes sense to have one "task bar" instead of two (i.e. a virtual second "taskbar" of tabs...)
All my web pages are easily selectable from the main browser window. No extra menus or crowded taskbars.
Like I said, maybe you think of different websites as different windows of your main browser task.
I guess my issue with your post is the double speak. You promote having to open an additional taskbar icon menu to see your compressed options as a feature of XP's taskbar. However, you seem to be repulsed at the idea of having right click menus add a few features like open in new tab (foreground/backdround)
I also don't like the idea of a tab-bar taking yet more screen space. The extra options in the context menu is a minor point anyway, just one of several small reasons why I don't like MDI for browsers. Or in general!
So which is it? Is more clicks and menus better? Or is less clicks and menus better? I prefer less clicks and menus to move around.
Less click when you have fewer windows and more clicks *when you need 'em* seems ideal to me.
A tabbed browser eliminates the toolbar clutter, speeds page switching, eliminates desktop clutter. Ever had 25 web pages open at once? Kinda tough on the desktop useability with SDI browsers.
That's my point...25 windows is no longer tough on desktop usability with the grouping that XP does! And it's a solution that works with every app I have.
I was not trying to imply that you used the toy os thing. That line just came across wrong. It was a general comment with toy quoted as that has been applied to linux before and my opinion is that in many areas linux offers better useability than windows. Bill
Again, it sounds like you might be mixing up the mouse use of a browser vs what the OS itself provides. Actually, I think Linux's problem might be that it's the opposite of a toy OS! I've been using Unix for 8 years now, and for server work I hate using anything else. But I think Windows moved a step ahead of both Mac and Linux taskbar/windows management UI with Win95, and has been a step ahead ever since.
Oh, are you using an OS that makes you click more than once and select from a menu to open a new window?
Err, I can left click on a link, or right click and select to open the link in a new window. (Or I can hit ctrl-n for a brand new window) what are you getting at anyway?
How exactly do you define clever? So let's see, you have 14 web pages open and before you can determine what they contain, you have to move to the OS toolbar and then click it to get a menu and then search the menu to find the doc you want and then click that? Gee, that really is clever!
Err...it's better than a bunch of tiny little buttons, with the browser's icons scattered among other apps, none of which are big enough to read...I mean, if I don't want it to collapse, I just raise up the taskbar so it has 2 or 3 lines to work with.
It's a good solution, with lots of configurable options to stick with the old behavior if you so desire. I haven't played with many Linux window managers, but I haven't seen a system that handles the "iconic view" of running programs as well as XP.
And I never called anything else a "toy" OS. You got pretty snarky without good reason. And it's not the browser that's compressing open windows, it's the OS.
Thanks, but no. I will stick with my "toy" OS that allows a single click to open new windows and with a 4 meg browser that does not compress all my open windows into one clever, hidden mass menu.
Bill
I don't see much of a benefit for MDI. (And I hope if it's "only an option", there's a way to hide it, so every time I right click a link I don't get an extra "open in new tab in this window" link along with the usual "open in new window" etc)
With XP and its pretty darn clever taskbar management (group like windows on the taskbar, and then collapsing multiple windows into a single task bar entry and making a little minimenu off of that), this is really not a help for a modern Windows desktop user. (and while I'm biased by my long term exposure to it, I like the new and improved taskbar a lot more then, say, the OS X Dock, with its mix of program launchers and runing programs and way too much motion w/ the default settings)
to back up your point, the N64 controller was huge compared with the snes controller. Makes one think what the future may bring.
(Stale conversation, but what the heck...)
...and the GameCube has about the smallest controller of them all right now. I think it's terrific. Better button differentiation than the Dual Shock, which is also pretty good. (Kudos to N64 for bringing back analog sticks after a long absence!)
3DO was into selling the main consoles at a loss?
That's odd, I thought the consoles were like $700 when they came out...was the tech in them that great for the time?
Not only that, byt XBox/3DO have already diverged, 3DO was trying to get lots of different manufacturers making hardware that could play the same software while still maintaining a "home appliance" feel (i.e. more like VCR manufacture than PC...)
A fair point, especially given Microsoft's past ability to weather poor early releases of software products. (Of course, hardware has a per unit manufacture cost that software doesn't, leading to one of those amusing "losing $100 on every sale but making it up in volume" situations.)
Still, they've already learned from one mistake of having a huuuuge controller and have brought a smaller version to the US market; if they do the same with custom chips ala Sony and/or reducing the size of future units, as well as keep up their relatinships with the game makers, they'll still be a force to be reckoned with.
They are just punishing you for listening to Celine Dion. YOu deserve it.
No, this is your karmically-correct punishment for buying the Celine Dion CD...listening is its own punishment.
The front page of Fusion Lighting is blank, but Google can point you to a promotionalish page on Sulfur Lighting as well as a Technology Page.
I invented a similar product!
Kirk Israel's Dehydrated Fire Fighting Marbles.
Just add water.
Lately I've been having some intermitent trouble with the anti-zone; where you just can't get jack-squat done. You hit slashdot, Usenet, go through various sites, anything but the task as hand.
I'm getting it under control, but sometimes there's just this huge inertia you have to overcome. But luckily that's intertia in both the difficult-to-start form AND the easy-to-keep-going senses of the term.
It looked like the Xbox was trying to compete with PS2 headon, with relatively little to differentiate itself, except maybe Halo. While its 3rd party game selection is very healthy (especially compated to GameCube's meager trickle...though Sega Soccer Slam has lightened by view by a lot recently) it is having to try to build all its franchises from scratch, and doesn't have the stable of guaranteed gaming wonders that Nintendo provides for its faithful.
But competing with the PS2 on its own turf? That's tough.
My humble Pentium II based desktop can do a pretty good emulation of the effects of a proximate nuclear explosion...I just yank the plug.
A: This is nothing new, my cousin's friend knew a guy who did something vaguely similar once before.
B: This can't possibly work because it has no foundation.
Well, actually, that's not a terrible, if somewhat overly conservative, viewpoint to have...for most problems in the real world, smart people have been trying to solve them with varying degrees of success, and I'd wager that most of the useful work is evolutionary, not revolutionary, so this pair of responses aren't as bad as you seem to imply.
Robert Abbot's piece Video Games Are Incredibly Stupid! touches many of the same themes, and was making the rounds a month or two ago. You can see my studied (and illustrated) response back, and he's also posted many of the replies he has received.