...is cited in a real divorce case when the TSO players other half, can't play the latest doom/quake/enter generic fps online, because their missus spends all day gossiping on TSO
... bill gates, global corporations, the illuminanti, aliens, hyperintelligent mice, the masons etc secretly control the lives of your sims online
How long before..TSO has its 1st divorce in game...is cited in a real divorce case when the TSO players other half, can't play the latest doom/quake/enter generic fps online, because their missus spends all day gossiping on TSO... bill gates, global corporations, the illuminanti, aliens, hyperintelligent mice, the masons etc secretly control the lives of your sims online
X-COM Apocalypse is worth a go too, you can play it as a RTS or in standard turn based mode. Wait till you see the exploding alien for the 1st time, they make a nice change from fragging etherals
BTW what do you use to slow down X-Com/UFO ?, as I've tried slo-mo et al and they don't seem to slow my pc enough.
I want to slow it down, so you see can see the quick flashes of enemy movement between turns, as it loses its appeal without it
But should people who haven't used a computer before be expected to be able to use a program like Blender without understanding the basics of 3d modelling and animation?
After all the UI is just one aspect of it, even with a simpler user interface you'd still be expected to understand at least the basics of 3D modelling to get the best out of it.
Unless Blender ends up as easy to use as an Exasketch, it will never be usable for a novice computer user. To make it that useable you would need to reduce the complexity of 3D modelling itself.
Really kids would better off using software that hides the complexity of modelling and animation, as well as providing a simple interface. After all usability is more than just the simplicity of the interface itself.
I can't believe Blender was even intended to be used by children or novice computer users, really they would be better served by a program designed from the ground up to be user friendly, rather than one designed from the ground up to be usable for techies!.
Ah but thats the complexity of the features of the application, not the GUI itself.
Looking at that SUN Java applet, it was clearly an abacus, the GUI was inuitive...but the functionality of the abacus would be confusing to someone who didn't know what an abacus was.
I've tried Blender and didn't think there was much wrong with its GUI. But not having much experience in 3D graphics I found the application itself had a steep learning curve rather than the GUI.
Personally I think MS Office has the real GUI problem, thats one application suite that really does have too many features (well they've got to justify those upgrades somehow...)and the many inconsistencies in its GUI give it a steeper learning curve than is necessary for what I would describe as ordinary computer users.
I see all the mentions of MULE being a classic game and especially a decent multiplayer game
What I don't see is anyone really commenting on what made MULE a classic game ?
For those of us who've never played it can someone summarise what made it so special?
Oh well in a few weeks I'll have the time to boot up my old Amiga and see what its really like
To my shame I have an Amiga version of MULE that, I've never got round to playing, roll on holdiay time !
Well to be hoest I took one look at the screenshots on the box and it didn't look very exciting. Guess the illustrations can't have done the game much justice as I never bothered to play it (doh).
Don't think this is BT being generous though they're just trying extend their mononoply position over the local loop into the broadband area.
BT's competitors buy access to the network through BT, so when BT cuts their prices they price their charges so that the minnows can only compete on wafer thin margins.
BT has competition from the cable co's for sure, Telewest and NTL mainly but they are both heavily in debt and have not spent the resources upgrading their networks for broadband access.
For example, I've got a cable phone line and for I live in Parkstone on the Poole/Bournmeouth border and for over 5 years NTL have been promising broadband is coming soon.
I could go to BT but that would mean changing my phone line, and paying BT's higher prices, as for cheap broadband NTL offer a basic 128k service for £15 a month, which would be good if they actually provided across the country (yeah I know 1 meg would be better, but try getting the wife to agree !)
NTL took over the old C&W franchise and have dragged their feet over introducing broadband to all us C&W customers.
The only competition in the sector is really from the small indepedents biting at BT's ankles.
Can you point to one project that has succeeded because of HCI? In my experience all the recommendations by HCI types were irrelevant to the success of the project.
I know where you leading on this, but I'll bite
Well it depends what you mean by 'project' but considering how broad an area HCI covers this is not difficult to answer:
One example of a where project that has succeeded because of HCI is Quicken. There have been numerous similar programs in the market before it, and sometimes offered more features. However Quicken was a personal finance program that paid great attention to the user needs, and it was superior to other programs due to the effort mad e to make it user friendly
Ergonomics (HCI) is another example,reserch projects at XEROX PARC lead to the mouse and the trackball, which led on to the development of GUI's at PARC (later 'adopted' by Apple)
Without those HCI research projects we would still be stuck using the CLI, and computer use would not be as widespread as it is today.
Sketchpad developed during a Phd project, heavily focused on what is now thought of as HCI, where early HIC research led to the idea that visible objects on the screen could be directly manipulated with a pointing device
Kay proposed the idea of overlapping windows in his 1969 University of Utah PhD thesis 'The Reactive Engine', that was sucessful, I mean a lot of us use GUI's, some even 'Windows'
Vannevar Bush's famous MEMEX idea from 1945 Hypertext came from very early HCI,which of course led on the world wide web. Hmm I wonder if hypertext will ever be successful, nah put that down to one of lifes failed projects
I'm sure other people could quote other examples.
Of course NOT using HCI can cause a few mishaps we probably wouldn't have had:
:3 Mile Island
:The London Ambulance Service Computer Aided Design System
Slashdot Mirror
What about 3D monster maze the original FPS game, (Well if you had a ZX81 at least)
Actually the Amiga was originally to be called 'Hi Toro', but that was changed because a lawnmower-company had a similar name
So they decided to call it 'Amiga', which is of course Spanish for 'girlfriend'.
So it was not only a revolutionary pile of electronics, but also a girfriend!
Maybe this will increase the chances of NASA outsourcing their Astronauts to India ;)
Its not based on the Terry Pratchet book "Good Omens" by any chance ?
I've got the 1975 edition of the original D&D rulebook. Which begs thequestion, do people collect D&D stuff now ?
Its no use to me now, it doesn't involve computers so my kids not interested in it.
But does it have any intrinsic value beyond the nostalgia of a 30 something's wistful thinking ?
Its almost on topic, its 2am and I'm hacking some ancient fox code, so here goes...
How many MCP's does it take to change a lightbulb ?
None they just redefine darkness as the industry standard.
MCP's A+ its all the same, as if learning a book by rote makes you better at computer repairs.
Nothing beats learning from your mistakes and frying the odd mobo.
Make that the last 2 decades of "but wait till you see what's coming!".
I'm still waiting for my Amiga surfboard.
now that really was vapourware
Hmm what next "Extreme Ironing" anyone ?
>>"I am surprised no one has made a real-time
>>chess game.
>>I'll even give you a good name for it: "Xtreme Chess" >>
>>Actually, its called Kung Fu Chess [gamespy.com]
I hope you're not married IRL then
That would be Dungeon Keeper online then.
Just don't hold your breath for Bullfrog to develop it
Profit !!!
with apologies for forgetting the newline tags...
..
...is cited in a real divorce case when the TSO players other half, can't play the latest doom/quake/enter generic fps online, because their missus spends all day gossiping on TSO
... bill gates, global corporations, the illuminanti, aliens, hyperintelligent mice, the masons etc secretly control the lives of your sims online
How long before
... TSO has its 1st divorce in game
>>It looks like I'm staying with Ancient Anguish >>[anguish.org] for a while longer.
The trolls will really like this page that describes how to Finger an Ancient Anguish player.
How long before ..TSO has its 1st divorce in game ...is cited in a real divorce case when the TSO players other half, can't play the latest doom/quake/enter generic fps online, because their missus spends all day gossiping on TSO. .. bill gates, global corporations, the illuminanti, aliens, hyperintelligent mice, the masons etc secretly control the lives of your sims online
X-COM Apocalypse is worth a go too, you can play it as a RTS or in standard turn based mode.
Wait till you see the exploding alien for the 1st time, they make a nice change from fragging etherals
BTW what do you use to slow down X-Com/UFO ?, as I've tried slo-mo et al and they don't seem to slow my pc enough.
I want to slow it down, so you see can see the quick flashes of enemy movement between turns, as it loses its appeal without it
>>Patent Vapourware ?
Sssh you've just discovered Amiga's secret plan to return to profitability.
But should people who haven't used a computer before be expected to be able to use a program like Blender without understanding the basics of 3d modelling and animation?
After all the UI is just one aspect of it, even with a simpler user interface you'd still be expected to understand at least the basics of 3D modelling to get the best out of it.
Unless Blender ends up as easy to use as an
Exasketch, it will never be usable for a novice
computer user. To make it that useable you would need to reduce the complexity of 3D modelling itself.
Really kids would better off using software that hides the complexity of modelling and animation, as well as providing a simple interface. After all usability is more than just the simplicity of the interface itself.
I can't believe Blender was even intended to be
used by children or novice computer users, really
they would be better served by a program designed from the ground up to be user friendly, rather than one designed from the ground up to be usable for techies!.
Ah but thats the complexity of the features of the application, not the GUI itself.
Looking at that SUN Java applet, it was clearly an abacus, the GUI was inuitive...but the functionality of the abacus would be confusing to someone who didn't know what an abacus was.
I've tried Blender and didn't think there was much wrong with its GUI. But not having much experience in 3D graphics I found the application itself had a steep learning curve rather than the GUI.
Personally I think MS Office has the real GUI problem, thats one application suite that really does have too many features (well they've got to justify those upgrades somehow...)and the many inconsistencies in its GUI give it a steeper learning curve than is necessary for what I would describe as ordinary computer users.
Cough, Cough...
How about an Abacus, THE original computer and GUI.
As for a proper GUI, I never had to look at my Amiga manual to understand the GUI.
Cheap as chips and simple to use.
>>Please name a GUI that doesn't require people >>to get used to it.
I see all the mentions of MULE being a classic game and especially a decent multiplayer game
What I don't see is anyone really commenting on what made MULE a classic game ?
For those of us who've never played it can someone summarise what made it so special?
Oh well in a few weeks I'll have the time to boot up my old Amiga and see what its really like
To my shame I have an Amiga version of MULE that, I've never got round to playing, roll on holdiay time !
Well to be hoest I took one look at the screenshots on the box and it didn't look very exciting. Guess the illustrations can't have done the game much justice as I never bothered to play it (doh).
Don't think this is BT being generous though they're just trying extend their mononoply position over the local loop into the broadband area.
BT's competitors buy access to the network through BT, so when BT cuts their prices they price their charges so that the minnows can only compete on wafer thin margins.
BT has competition from the cable co's for sure, Telewest and NTL mainly but they are both heavily in debt and have not spent the resources upgrading their networks for broadband access.
For example, I've got a cable phone line and for I live in Parkstone on the Poole/Bournmeouth border and for over 5 years NTL have been promising broadband is coming soon.
I could go to BT but that would mean changing my phone line, and paying BT's higher prices, as for cheap broadband NTL offer a basic 128k service for £15 a month, which would be good if they actually provided across the country (yeah I know 1 meg would be better, but try getting the wife to agree !)
NTL took over the old C&W franchise and have dragged their feet over introducing broadband to all us C&W customers.
The only competition in the sector is really from the small indepedents biting at BT's ankles.
Better stop before I go into rant mode!
I think you'll find even COBOL programs are still be developed commercially, so to say Java will be dead within 5 years is flamebait.
.Net via C# but I doubt even Microsoft think it will usurp Java itself.
.Net stategy (with C# a small part of their plan)
With C# Microsoft have taken ideas from Java, but C# is isn't Java.
C# is designed to kill of Visual J++, by migrating users to the
Sure Microsoft are trying their best to stifle Java, thats because they feel threatened like some sort of wounded animal.
Microsoft can't rely on Windows and Office anymore as being their core business longterm, hence their
Java probaly will die eventually, but I'm sure it won't be C# that does it.
Can you point to one project that has succeeded because of HCI? In my experience all the recommendations by HCI types were irrelevant to the success of the project.
I know where you leading on this, but I'll bite
Well it depends what you mean by 'project' but considering how broad an area HCI covers this is not difficult to answer:
One example of a where project that has succeeded because of HCI is Quicken. There have been numerous similar programs in the market before it, and sometimes offered more features. However Quicken was a personal finance program that paid great attention to the user needs, and it was superior to other programs due to the effort mad e to make it user friendly
Ergonomics (HCI) is another example,reserch projects at XEROX PARC lead to the mouse and the trackball, which led on to the development of GUI's at PARC (later 'adopted' by Apple)
Without those HCI research projects we would still be stuck using the CLI, and computer use would not be as widespread as it is today.
Sketchpad developed during a Phd project, heavily focused on what is now thought of as HCI, where early HIC research led to the idea that visible objects on the screen could be directly manipulated with a pointing device
Kay proposed the idea of overlapping windows in his 1969 University of Utah PhD thesis 'The Reactive Engine', that was sucessful, I mean a lot of us use GUI's, some even 'Windows'
Vannevar Bush's famous MEMEX idea from 1945 Hypertext came from very early HCI,which of course led on the world wide web. Hmm I wonder if hypertext will ever be successful, nah put that down to one of lifes failed projects
I'm sure other people could quote other examples.
Of course NOT using HCI can cause a few mishaps we probably wouldn't have had:
:3 Mile Island
:The London Ambulance Service Computer Aided Design System
Indian Airlines Flight 605
Iran Air 655
if proper HCI research had been carried out.
Microsoft also has the best research team in the world on 3D graphics, natural language processing, and a few other fields
Yup its one of the areas where they actually do produce interesting ideas.
The work on 3D interfaces such as Task Gallery is pretty cool.
I'll stop before this turns into a monty python style 'what has microsoft everdone for us' rant
Why is that the good stuff at Microsoft either stays hidden in the research labs?