Ah, almost forgot. What would be great now is to include a powerful an universal method for switching between applications/tabs.
In current OS there is just too much incompatibility. Ctrl + -> to move to the next desktop, than alt + tab to change to the other program, then the mouse to select the browser tab or the file I'm editing. tabs were a quick fix that never really solved the problem...
Wow, this is like a full dinner of pure hate. I don't get it, really.
What is all the noise with the touchscreens? Don't want it? Don't buy one. I certainly wont. That simple. A mouse will work as it always does.
As I see it, Windows8 does bring an interface that is good for tablets, but from the desktop point of view, this is what I read:
- We'll make it easy to use things full screen (nice, I always do, I personally hate moving windows around, re-sizing them, etc.)
- If you need to see two things at the time, you can and we'll put a nice separator that will allow you to resize both at the same time.
- We'll make the menu use the whole screen, and you can customize it much more, even placing other things in it that you might want to look at from time to time.
- We don't think you need to have some artificial place behind everything, so we'll be done with this desktop analogy (fine by me, as a avoid at all costs having things there that end up being just a huge mess full of icons for most people, to a point that I don't use it at all).
- But hey, if you really like it, we'll keep that desktop working for you.
The whole things seems to me to be moving away from moving windows and more into full-screen and/or docks, much as IDEs, Photoshop and many other programs have been doings with much improvement of user experience IMHO.
Now, the main thing is that there is no universal user interface that will be best for absolutely everybody. So they provide options but they don't stagnate trying to go forth with newer ideas. I think it's perfectly reasonable. Sure, they might not get if 100% right right away, but that's way better than total stagnation.
I agree. It's just that we have seen already the consequences a society dominated by lawyers and bankers.
Interestingly enough it seems to me that a society dominated by sciences tends to fare much better, though I have no numbers to prove it. For me, its kind of the difference between "builders" and "exploiters"...
prioritize citizens over internationals for university slots
I'm sure the slots are there, but it seems US People are not. I'm studying at a top-level CS department in the US, my particular master program has 23 people: 18 Chinese, 3 Indian, 2 American (one from Mexico and myself, from Chile - and yes, we are from America too). Not a single guy from the US. I see the same in most programs (the Chinese/Indian proportion varies).
And the guy running the program would love to have a more balanced set of students, it's just that there seem to be not enough candidates or not good enough.
Sure, but law and society are there exactly to avoid living in such the jungle where the predators win. Else I might as well go and shoot the CEO of Zinga.
The "natural state" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_nature, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGyygiXMzRk) is not were you want to live. The (extreme) irony here is Zynga using the exact tools (law) created to move from predator behavior to morals human rights to do the opposite.
What is all this obsession with should/shouldn't? A shell is a power tool. As such, it should not be required if you want your OS to be for normal humans.
There is nothing particularly good about a step learning curve and a shell sucks at mostly all the human-computer interaction laws that you can come across (read Don Norman), including recognition v/s recall, using knowledge in the world, and many, many others.
Linux is getting better, but IMHO too many simple tasks are still a matter of trying to use the GUI, fail miserably and open a console (welcome the 1960s). Then start reading forums wikis and other to find out WTF to do and then iterate over many solutions till one finally works. That is WORK, even more, it's not USEFUL WORK and it's clearly not the work that THE USER WANTS TO DO.
That said, a power tool is "nice to have" and efficient for those who are familiar with it, so it probably deserves your time and you probably want to learn it. My point is those who say "bah, I can do that in my shell" or "it's your fault if you don't want to learn" are basically saying "yes, indeed, Linux is not for you, it's for me", and that is EXACTLY Microsoft's point.
Australia would loose no tourists at all, the US would (and has). In business, maybe the added difficulty would provide incentives to do business with other countries, lessening the dependence and interconnecting the world in a better, healthier way. The point is how much crap are people going to take for short term gains. When do we begin to say: Stop, no more, time to look for alternatives!
What any sane goverment should do is just that, clean their hands of all the hassle of traveling to the US, till every passsanger or turist thinks twice about doing so. The dependence on the US and the following import of laws and regulations is doing no favors to any other country.
Re:The barrier is too high, MAN must adapt
on
Next-Gen Spacesuits
·
· Score: 1
If you want ideas on that, the book Endymion by Dan Simmons had that kind of human in the plot.
Add parking lots to that list. Most cars are used a small number of times a day. Autonomous taxis would severely decrease the number of cars on the streets. Also, most cars would be small, 1 or 2 persons. Only rent the big ones when there are enough passengers or cargo.
Well, I agree with you, and of course I always use my seat belt and enforce that others do if I'm driving. The tradeoff is spectacularly good I believe.
But on the other hand, I cannot cease to wonder where is the thin line that divides the choices that you have on your own life versus what others decide for you, knowing that EVERYTHING is interconnected. Also, when do we stop worrying about security and simply live life as it comes? The problem is that this line is probably not the same for everyone.
There is no such thing as free safety, and people should have figured that by know, but instead it's always "safety first" or "safety no matter the cost" and that if a cost is even mentioned. Helmets for example are mandatory for bikes in many places, but I find them detrimental to my biking experience to a point that I prefer to risk injury, else I would just stop biking at all. Some people actually believe on helmets all the time, even for pedestrians. Safer? Sure, so is staying at home all your life. Worth it? Not for me.
I believe that your perspective is completely valid. The main issue IMHO is that we now live in a world where we expect everything to get done ASAP (or inmediatelly), almost everything is now time-sensitive by default. Thus, you are interrupted time and again with small issues that don't seem big, but that add up to a huge impact in the way you relate to others and the kind of things you do in your free (or not) time. It was no so a generation ago (not enough tech to make it work anyway).
Seriously, some people handle this kind of interruptions much better than others, but most don't even perceive the real impact. Ask your wife or friends for their opinion.
I actually consider that to be a major failure of the way democracies are organized. We still elect representatives mainly on geographical considerations, which are less and less important in terms of the ideas/postures that need to be represented, at the same time that we expect those representatives to cope with all possible issues. Now available choices actually make little practical difference and you don't really feel represented at all.
I would rather choose a set of representatives for specific areas, according to my opinion on those areas (or blank if I don{t care about one in particular). Corollary, representatives like that would have appropriate skills/knowledge.
Actually, I just took a human computer interaction class at CMU and I was surprised to find out that CLI break EVERY rule of usability out there. EVERY cognitive research. Truly. Feedback is horrible, cognitive aspects nonexistent, explorability is VERY hard... I could go on and on!
Though I understand that if you get past the steep learning curve and use it long enough so you manage to imprint all those commands in your head, yeah, it is more efficient. 99% of people wont get there. You did, but now that you got all that knowledge, god forbid someone changes anything! Which kind of explains your opinion too.
"USA had done more good than harm", I'm not so sure, let's see:
- War
- Economic trouble
- Airport Security (and general paranoia)
- Copyright
- Fast food
No, I'm not a fan of your current main exports...
If the direct and inevitable consequence of feeding 1 starving child is to get 3 starving children on the near future, I just don't see how you "helped" them. Also, those 3 new children will be in an even worse condition than the first and with less resources and autonomy to do something about it.
Sadly, less food and more education seem to be the only (harsh) way out. In some countries famine can be a particular catastrophe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)), but in some third-world countries it's basically systemic, and has endured for decades.
Yes, the first world need to lower consumption and become more sustainable. They are doing that slowly. Population in the first world is contained and not a problem. So, non of you measures will actually solve anything in either the first or third world. A non-solution doesn't become a solution just because you don't like the alternatives. And believe me, nobody likes them, but they may well be necessary.
IMHO a law that doesn't consider human nature, costs, border cases, implementation, enforcement or other repercutions is not a good law. It's only a good idea or intention. The difficulty of creating a good law is that most of the time a delicate balance needs to be reached between conflicting interests. The goal is to maximize the good for most people whitout being unfair to a few.
Again IMHO, a law that put in practice is clearly imbalanced and minimizes the benefits to society is a BAD law, pure and simple.
As far as I know, here in Chile we have the only net-neutrality law worldwide.
We do not have censorship due to intelligence, nor deep-package inspection nor any other bullshit. No ridiculous laws about child pornography (yes, VERY illegal, but the actual measures taken are IMHO, much wiser).
I don't think we are even mentioned.
Human Education, Human Imperfection or Human Existence. They are the root causes of most (if not all) problems, and often also the solution. But IMHO shifting all conversation to these topics is just like having no conversation at all.
Reaching too far into the cause/effect tree leads you only to the origin of the universe and to a complete philosophical standstill.
Slashdot Mirror
Ah, almost forgot. What would be great now is to include a powerful an universal method for switching between applications/tabs. In current OS there is just too much incompatibility. Ctrl + -> to move to the next desktop, than alt + tab to change to the other program, then the mouse to select the browser tab or the file I'm editing. tabs were a quick fix that never really solved the problem...
Wow, this is like a full dinner of pure hate. I don't get it, really.
What is all the noise with the touchscreens? Don't want it? Don't buy one. I certainly wont. That simple. A mouse will work as it always does.
As I see it, Windows8 does bring an interface that is good for tablets, but from the desktop point of view, this is what I read:
- We'll make it easy to use things full screen (nice, I always do, I personally hate moving windows around, re-sizing them, etc.)
- If you need to see two things at the time, you can and we'll put a nice separator that will allow you to resize both at the same time.
- We'll make the menu use the whole screen, and you can customize it much more, even placing other things in it that you might want to look at from time to time.
- We don't think you need to have some artificial place behind everything, so we'll be done with this desktop analogy (fine by me, as a avoid at all costs having things there that end up being just a huge mess full of icons for most people, to a point that I don't use it at all). - But hey, if you really like it, we'll keep that desktop working for you.
The whole things seems to me to be moving away from moving windows and more into full-screen and/or docks, much as IDEs, Photoshop and many other programs have been doings with much improvement of user experience IMHO.
Now, the main thing is that there is no universal user interface that will be best for absolutely everybody. So they provide options but they don't stagnate trying to go forth with newer ideas. I think it's perfectly reasonable. Sure, they might not get if 100% right right away, but that's way better than total stagnation.
I agree. It's just that we have seen already the consequences a society dominated by lawyers and bankers.
Interestingly enough it seems to me that a society dominated by sciences tends to fare much better, though I have no numbers to prove it. For me, its kind of the difference between "builders" and "exploiters"...
prioritize citizens over internationals for university slots
I'm sure the slots are there, but it seems US People are not. I'm studying at a top-level CS department in the US, my particular master program has 23 people: 18 Chinese, 3 Indian, 2 American (one from Mexico and myself, from Chile - and yes, we are from America too). Not a single guy from the US. I see the same in most programs (the Chinese/Indian proportion varies). And the guy running the program would love to have a more balanced set of students, it's just that there seem to be not enough candidates or not good enough.
+1, I suffered exactly the same effect you describe. (reinforced by Frank Herbert never finishing Dune)
Sure, but law and society are there exactly to avoid living in such the jungle where the predators win. Else I might as well go and shoot the CEO of Zinga. The "natural state" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_nature, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGyygiXMzRk) is not were you want to live. The (extreme) irony here is Zynga using the exact tools (law) created to move from predator behavior to morals human rights to do the opposite.
What is all this obsession with should/shouldn't? A shell is a power tool. As such, it should not be required if you want your OS to be for normal humans.
There is nothing particularly good about a step learning curve and a shell sucks at mostly all the human-computer interaction laws that you can come across (read Don Norman), including recognition v/s recall, using knowledge in the world, and many, many others.
Linux is getting better, but IMHO too many simple tasks are still a matter of trying to use the GUI, fail miserably and open a console (welcome the 1960s). Then start reading forums wikis and other to find out WTF to do and then iterate over many solutions till one finally works. That is WORK, even more, it's not USEFUL WORK and it's clearly not the work that THE USER WANTS TO DO.
That said, a power tool is "nice to have" and efficient for those who are familiar with it, so it probably deserves your time and you probably want to learn it. My point is those who say "bah, I can do that in my shell" or "it's your fault if you don't want to learn" are basically saying "yes, indeed, Linux is not for you, it's for me", and that is EXACTLY Microsoft's point.
Australia would loose no tourists at all, the US would (and has). In business, maybe the added difficulty would provide incentives to do business with other countries, lessening the dependence and interconnecting the world in a better, healthier way. The point is how much crap are people going to take for short term gains. When do we begin to say: Stop, no more, time to look for alternatives!
The difference is that this time, for once, they don't want to nuke it!
What any sane goverment should do is just that, clean their hands of all the hassle of traveling to the US, till every passsanger or turist thinks twice about doing so. The dependence on the US and the following import of laws and regulations is doing no favors to any other country.
If you want ideas on that, the book Endymion by Dan Simmons had that kind of human in the plot.
Add parking lots to that list. Most cars are used a small number of times a day. Autonomous taxis would severely decrease the number of cars on the streets. Also, most cars would be small, 1 or 2 persons. Only rent the big ones when there are enough passengers or cargo.
No no no, in America copyright owns you. In Slovakia, copyright knows its place.
in the USA, sure. Most countries in in America are much healthier though.
Remembers me the Wikipedia debate. High quality but full of trust issues. But give it time and it may become the norm.
Well, I agree with you, and of course I always use my seat belt and enforce that others do if I'm driving. The tradeoff is spectacularly good I believe.
But on the other hand, I cannot cease to wonder where is the thin line that divides the choices that you have on your own life versus what others decide for you, knowing that EVERYTHING is interconnected. Also, when do we stop worrying about security and simply live life as it comes? The problem is that this line is probably not the same for everyone.
There is no such thing as free safety, and people should have figured that by know, but instead it's always "safety first" or "safety no matter the cost" and that if a cost is even mentioned. Helmets for example are mandatory for bikes in many places, but I find them detrimental to my biking experience to a point that I prefer to risk injury, else I would just stop biking at all. Some people actually believe on helmets all the time, even for pedestrians. Safer? Sure, so is staying at home all your life. Worth it? Not for me.
I believe that your perspective is completely valid. The main issue IMHO is that we now live in a world where we expect everything to get done ASAP (or inmediatelly), almost everything is now time-sensitive by default. Thus, you are interrupted time and again with small issues that don't seem big, but that add up to a huge impact in the way you relate to others and the kind of things you do in your free (or not) time. It was no so a generation ago (not enough tech to make it work anyway). Seriously, some people handle this kind of interruptions much better than others, but most don't even perceive the real impact. Ask your wife or friends for their opinion.
I actually consider that to be a major failure of the way democracies are organized. We still elect representatives mainly on geographical considerations, which are less and less important in terms of the ideas/postures that need to be represented, at the same time that we expect those representatives to cope with all possible issues. Now available choices actually make little practical difference and you don't really feel represented at all. I would rather choose a set of representatives for specific areas, according to my opinion on those areas (or blank if I don{t care about one in particular). Corollary, representatives like that would have appropriate skills/knowledge.
Actually, I just took a human computer interaction class at CMU and I was surprised to find out that CLI break EVERY rule of usability out there. EVERY cognitive research. Truly. Feedback is horrible, cognitive aspects nonexistent, explorability is VERY hard... I could go on and on! Though I understand that if you get past the steep learning curve and use it long enough so you manage to imprint all those commands in your head, yeah, it is more efficient. 99% of people wont get there. You did, but now that you got all that knowledge, god forbid someone changes anything! Which kind of explains your opinion too.
This is being used in my course on human-computer interaction at CMU, is not particular to software, but the advice goes deeper than icons or widgets, into real human behavior: http://www.amazon.com/Design-Everyday-Things-Donald-Norman/dp/0465067107/ref=tmm_pap_title_0
"USA had done more good than harm", I'm not so sure, let's see: - War - Economic trouble - Airport Security (and general paranoia) - Copyright - Fast food No, I'm not a fan of your current main exports...
If the direct and inevitable consequence of feeding 1 starving child is to get 3 starving children on the near future, I just don't see how you "helped" them. Also, those 3 new children will be in an even worse condition than the first and with less resources and autonomy to do something about it.
Sadly, less food and more education seem to be the only (harsh) way out. In some countries famine can be a particular catastrophe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)), but in some third-world countries it's basically systemic, and has endured for decades.
Yes, the first world need to lower consumption and become more sustainable. They are doing that slowly. Population in the first world is contained and not a problem. So, non of you measures will actually solve anything in either the first or third world. A non-solution doesn't become a solution just because you don't like the alternatives. And believe me, nobody likes them, but they may well be necessary.
IMHO a law that doesn't consider human nature, costs, border cases, implementation, enforcement or other repercutions is not a good law. It's only a good idea or intention. The difficulty of creating a good law is that most of the time a delicate balance needs to be reached between conflicting interests. The goal is to maximize the good for most people whitout being unfair to a few. Again IMHO, a law that put in practice is clearly imbalanced and minimizes the benefits to society is a BAD law, pure and simple.
As far as I know, here in Chile we have the only net-neutrality law worldwide. We do not have censorship due to intelligence, nor deep-package inspection nor any other bullshit. No ridiculous laws about child pornography (yes, VERY illegal, but the actual measures taken are IMHO, much wiser). I don't think we are even mentioned.
Do we already know what they are?
Human Education, Human Imperfection or Human Existence. They are the root causes of most (if not all) problems, and often also the solution. But IMHO shifting all conversation to these topics is just like having no conversation at all. Reaching too far into the cause/effect tree leads you only to the origin of the universe and to a complete philosophical standstill.