Um, yes, we can define what is good or bad. I'm pretty sure that if you:
took everyone at my place of employment,
showed them a random sampling of 500 websites,
and asked them to categorize them as appropriate or inappropriate for filtering at work,
you would find that everyone agrees on the apropriateness of about 490 of those sites. The problem is doing that with 5 billion pages, which may not even be the same tomorrow. There is also the fact that what is appropriate here is different from what is appropriate at an elementary school, so you can't use the same list everywhere. (the same experiment at an elementary school would also yield similar agreement, though on a different set of pages)
However, there sure are a lot of things that obviously should be blocked. You whine and complain that there is a small fraction of sites that reside near the critical cusp (and truly it is a small fraction when you consider the amounts of easily categorized commerce, puff, drivel, and unfettered debauchery on the web). What is the alternative? No filters? I would argue that easily half of the web should properly be blocked from schools, up to and including high schools.
If this is true, then clients will need to receive the stream synchronously (in the human sense, not the CS sense). So it will work OK for live events or "radoi stations," but not for on-demand item-by-item media.
programmer vs. end user version fatigue
on
Version Fatigue
·
· Score: 1
Uhhh... Am I missing something?
Yes, Xlib is the same old Xlib. But from the standpoint of most USERS, who cares? Redhat has changed its desktop COMPLETELY a few times (fvwm, nextLevel, kde1, gnome/enlightenment, gnome/sawfish...), has changed/etc stuff on a few occasions (chkconfig, sysconfig,/etc/rc.d/init.d,/etc/init.d, conf.modules, modules.conf, pam...), and subtly changes the recommended GUI config tools every version as well (control-panel, linuxconf, netconf, netconfig, redhat-config-network...)
This produces severe hoseage for those of us who would prefer to upgrade their existing system to a new kernel, new gcc, new libc, etc. (all reasonable changes that should not affect the end-user experience) instead of reformatting and reinstalling with each upgrade.
As some have already pointed out, Gates donations to Dems outpaces donations to Republicans. Why? He's betting that Democrats will sell out their stated principles for money, whereas Republicans already want to leave business alone. If you want to see Republicans selling out, look at the American steel industry. Nothing to see here in antitrust; move along.
while (OPEN_SOURCE_PRODUCT_VER >= COMMERCIAL_PRODUCT_VER) { OPEN_SOURCE_PRODUCT_VER/= LAG_JUSTIFICATION } printf("We're only at version %d, Just wait 'till we get to version %d", OPEN_SOURCE_PRODUCT_VER, COMMERCIAL_PRODUCT_VER);
It's the same reason Mac users stick with Macs, and why I think that Apple's latest marketing campaign isn't going to accomplish much. Although it would be great if it did.
Well, one reason why software sucks is that programmers often don't consider their audience. Gnome et al., might be pretty l337 under the hood, but the applications present an inconsistent interface to the user. Even if Gnome apps were all written in C instead of some in C, some Python, C++, Ruby, etc., it wouldn't make a difference. To contrast with MacOS, Cocoa apps are written in many languages but it took discipline and attention to detail to get a uniform interface. I think too often (undisciplined) programmers are willing to expose some feature of how an app was programmed to the user, instead of working out the laborious triple problem of:
Back end data representation, storage, and manipulation
Front end user experience
Whatever it takes to fit these together
Usually, Either (1.) gets all the attention and then a front end is kludged on, often using an improper (from the user's standpoint) representation of data, or (2.) someone drags and drops a UI togehter that they allow themselves to be constrained by when writing the guts of the app. Either way, the front end and back end are too coupled, and sonething suffers because of it.
It would be as if data that comes out of quicksort were presented to the end user of the app as a tree, since that's what the algorithm uses, instead of a list, which is the proper structure of the data from a human point of view. (Of course, nobody would be that gauche, but it makes a fine analogy, and what would a slashdot post be without an analogy?)
It's apparent to me that creators of MacOS software recognize the importance of (2.) and are actually willing to do (3.) in order to have appropriately powerful (1.). That's why I'm switching from Linux to MacOS. If others are sick of messing, fiddling, and screwing around with their desktop machine in the pursuit of true usability like I am, then Apple's latest ad campaign captures the Zeitgeist and will be a raging success.
A child of the parent window shouldn't have command that can affect the parent in such a durastic way.
I have to say that durastic (dyoo-raah-stik) is a terrific word. In a very Lewis Carroll way, it conveys its intended meaning without being a real word. Bravo!
An average/. reader doesn't have sufficient qualification to moderate. Maybe frequent posters with good karma could moderate better?
A finer-grained moderation system would do fine, thanks. Give each reader like 100 mod points per day. Allow scores to max out at a much higher number, or implement some conservation algorithm that rescales scores based on overall mod activity, or allow them to be floats.
Readers get it wrong, a lot, even. Still, your elitist solution is practically guaranteed to choke the life out of Slashdot.
The child thread here is unbelievably long, so I'll just post here.
I like the keyboard, because I believe it is faster. I like geometrically arranged controls, because they are more "intuitive." My keyboard has a nicely laid out cluster of 6 keys (insert, home, pgup, delete, end, pgdown) above the very geometrically intuitive arrow keys. I bind almost all conceivable window and desktop operations to some combination of modifiers and these geometrically clustered keys.
For example, if you like Windows' [minimize][maximixe][close] buttons in the corner, bind meta-[insert][home][pgup] to these commands, respectively.
You short-sighted fool. Voice actors will be replaced by synthesized audio. Directors and writers will be replaced by expert systems. Audiences will be replaced by machine vision neural nets. It's all so much more efficient once Moore's Law allows it.
I thought this was a Katz article from the story title, but then I realized that the/(clause):(clause)/ pattern was part of the movie title being referenced, and not the submitter's own work.
Oops! You forgot this important link! Let me add it for you..."...convenience is no longer convenient when it causes something to work in a way that the user doesn't want it to.
Like the "Related Links" table with every slashdot story. What a complete waste. How did that get started?
Dear Taco,
I have trouble visiting the links so cleverly inlined by your story submitters. You see, I set my browser to not underline links and to use the same font color for text and links, overriding your site's settings.
Is there some way you can make me aware of the inlined links in a slashdot story anyway? Maybe by duplicating them elsewhere without changing the anchor text?
Ummm.... Was the site hosted, by any chance, on a university-owned server? Then what are you complaining about? The first amendment means that the government has to tolerate free speech, not subsidize it.
Slashdot Mirror
- took everyone at my place of employment,
- showed them a random sampling of 500 websites,
- and asked them to categorize them as appropriate or inappropriate for filtering at work,
you would find that everyone agrees on the apropriateness of about 490 of those sites. The problem is doing that with 5 billion pages, which may not even be the same tomorrow. There is also the fact that what is appropriate here is different from what is appropriate at an elementary school, so you can't use the same list everywhere. (the same experiment at an elementary school would also yield similar agreement, though on a different set of pages)However, there sure are a lot of things that obviously should be blocked. You whine and complain that there is a small fraction of sites that reside near the critical cusp (and truly it is a small fraction when you consider the amounts of easily categorized commerce, puff, drivel, and unfettered debauchery on the web). What is the alternative? No filters? I would argue that easily half of the web should properly be blocked from schools, up to and including high schools.
If this is true, then clients will need to receive the stream synchronously (in the human sense, not the CS sense). So it will work OK for live events or "radoi stations," but not for on-demand item-by-item media.
Yes, Xlib is the same old Xlib. But from the standpoint of most USERS, who cares? Redhat has changed its desktop COMPLETELY a few times (fvwm, nextLevel, kde1, gnome/enlightenment, gnome/sawfish...), has changed
This produces severe hoseage for those of us who would prefer to upgrade their existing system to a new kernel, new gcc, new libc, etc. (all reasonable changes that should not affect the end-user experience) instead of reformatting and reinstalling with each upgrade.
You mean the Freemasons?
As some have already pointed out, Gates donations to Dems outpaces donations to Republicans. Why? He's betting that Democrats will sell out their stated principles for money, whereas Republicans already want to leave business alone. If you want to see Republicans selling out, look at the American steel industry. Nothing to see here in antitrust; move along.
Damn, no mod points....
You apparently understand the karma cap much better than you understand the sig limit.
#define LAG_JUSTIFICATION 6
/= LAG_JUSTIFICATION
while (OPEN_SOURCE_PRODUCT_VER >= COMMERCIAL_PRODUCT_VER)
{
OPEN_SOURCE_PRODUCT_VER
}
printf("We're only at version %d, Just wait 'till we get to version %d", OPEN_SOURCE_PRODUCT_VER, COMMERCIAL_PRODUCT_VER);
Well, one reason why software sucks is that programmers often don't consider their audience. Gnome et al., might be pretty l337 under the hood, but the applications present an inconsistent interface to the user. Even if Gnome apps were all written in C instead of some in C, some Python, C++, Ruby, etc., it wouldn't make a difference. To contrast with MacOS, Cocoa apps are written in many languages but it took discipline and attention to detail to get a uniform interface. I think too often (undisciplined) programmers are willing to expose some feature of how an app was programmed to the user, instead of working out the laborious triple problem of:
- Back end data representation, storage, and manipulation
- Front end user experience
- Whatever it takes to fit these together
Usually, Either (1.) gets all the attention and then a front end is kludged on, often using an improper (from the user's standpoint) representation of data, or (2.) someone drags and drops a UI togehter that they allow themselves to be constrained by when writing the guts of the app. Either way, the front end and back end are too coupled, and sonething suffers because of it.It would be as if data that comes out of quicksort were presented to the end user of the app as a tree, since that's what the algorithm uses, instead of a list, which is the proper structure of the data from a human point of view. (Of course, nobody would be that gauche, but it makes a fine analogy, and what would a slashdot post be without an analogy?)
It's apparent to me that creators of MacOS software recognize the importance of (2.) and are actually willing to do (3.) in order to have appropriately powerful (1.). That's why I'm switching from Linux to MacOS. If others are sick of messing, fiddling, and screwing around with their desktop machine in the pursuit of true usability like I am, then Apple's latest ad campaign captures the Zeitgeist and will be a raging success.
I have to say that durastic (dyoo-raah-stik) is a terrific word. In a very Lewis Carroll way, it conveys its intended meaning without being a real word. Bravo!
I'm actually surprised that "Cameroonian" is a real word.
Gee, is Gnome region-encoded too?
Check sig
(waiting for lameness timeout)
Bingo Foo
An average /. reader doesn't have sufficient qualification to moderate. Maybe frequent posters with good karma could moderate better?
A finer-grained moderation system would do fine, thanks. Give each reader like 100 mod points per day. Allow scores to max out at a much higher number, or implement some conservation algorithm that rescales scores based on overall mod activity, or allow them to be floats.
Readers get it wrong, a lot, even. Still, your elitist solution is practically guaranteed to choke the life out of Slashdot.
Bingo Foo
Pirated but unused software has zero effect. Stolen and unsmoked crack is different, since the supply of crack is scarce.
Bingo Foo
As soon as you typed in http://www.slashdot.org into your browser.
The "www." is deprecated and may be removed in a future release.
Bingo Foo
Oh, yes. C is better because you can program in it without thinking about what the final result will be.
You have made two cases here: that C is good as a learning language, and that C is not good for making well-designed programs.
Bingo Foo
Simple people talk of people, better people talk of events, great people talk of ideas.
That's some idea there, that sig where you talk of people....
Bingo Foo
I like the keyboard, because I believe it is faster. I like geometrically arranged controls, because they are more "intuitive." My keyboard has a nicely laid out cluster of 6 keys (insert, home, pgup, delete, end, pgdown) above the very geometrically intuitive arrow keys. I bind almost all conceivable window and desktop operations to some combination of modifiers and these geometrically clustered keys.
For example, if you like Windows' [minimize][maximixe][close] buttons in the corner, bind meta-[insert][home][pgup] to these commands, respectively.
Bingo Foo
Then it will also be the smartest flight in history.
Bingo Foo
Bingo Foo
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Bingo Foo
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Like the "Related Links" table with every slashdot story. What a complete waste. How did that get started?
Bingo Foo
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Bingo Foo
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Bingo Foo
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