Yes, the page on my site is intentional. I don't have anything worth putting up publicly. At least not yet. I'm hoping to find time before the end of the year to get that going again.
A friend of a friend was strongly involved in this, so I've had so time to look into it. First off, social networking based apps strongly benefit from a shared userbase and a shared tag library. Ning provides both to an developer. Well structured apps also get the benefit of sharing data, such as pets.ning.com, where all pets are aggregated, but anyone can make a site geared toward a specific breed. Not only to you build a closer community, but every new entry added at your specialized app adds value to the aggregate. There is a set of content types (pictures, discussion posts, people profiles, etc.) that nearly app could reuse, thus offering a huge benefit from this structure.
The biggest issue I see is usability for the consumer. The framework provides an impressive backend, but most of the frontend (HTML/PHP) is handled by the individual app developers. Every app is likely to look and act completely different.
While I do see this being a repository of abandoned apps, the Ning Pivot page should keep only the most active prominent. Someone compared it to Sourceforge, but despite the majority of apps that never got past planning, sourceforge remains useful to a huge number of projects. Same thing applies here.
I do see a namespace problem creeping in, both for app namespaces and content type name spaces. Sharing the data structures is going to get tricky, being both distributed and decentralized development platform.
With Yahoo's recent spending spree on Web2.0 (flickr.com, upcoming.net, etc.) this will be an interesting competitor. Can Ning "open source" mentality of app building really allow the community to build a better picture database? Will 24HL be able to focus on developer support and a foundational library while Yahoo is dedicating teams to every section?
If commercial softwarre ever wanted to prove their value over decentralized open source, this is it. Without a centralized authority and a large pile of money, open source can never provide the liability guarantee of a corporation. Very few open source projects have this backing, and very few capable backers would support open source. This could provide a balanced duality in the software world: either grab the software for free and accept the liability, or buy into commercial software with a gaurantee.
Such liability contracts should also promote pro-active testing, testing that actively tries to break the rules and testing logic that looks for problems at the source level. Most testing habits involve testing against the rules while ignoring the unexpected cases where most exploits occur. Being liable for such exploits would put some heavy pressure to change those habits.
While I haven't played Revenge, I really hated what they did with Crash mode in 3. The stupid x2 and x4 were basically a series of connect the dots. As long as you could make it from point A to B to C, you won without thinking. Childsplay. Even if you wanted to ignore the multipliers, they made the medal scale so steep, there is no way to achieve the gold without them.
In B2 you actually had to thinking about the physics and car interaction without the shiny little hints littering the road. This also leaves more possible solutions to pic from and opens up a little bit of replay value. It sounds like Revenge is a step in the right direction, but I won't know until I play it.
As for the car checking, I thik I agree. Why bother steering if you can just run through everything. While I like the idea of utilizing other cars, it sounds like it needs a little skill invovled (like only allowing side-to-side checking, or requiring a opposite direction flick at the last second).
I'm not sure what you talking about button mashing, as it doesn't jive with what I've read about the reviews.
And the parsing of javascript is also done in native code. The very fact that XML has a Javascript interface implies the browser "still ends up having to create a lot of objects in interpreted code". And the underlying design of DOM makes me think there will actually be more objects created through XML than through JSON. Remember, the JSON objects are almost all primitives in the Javascript language and there is a lot of optimization surrounding them.
Here's what I'd do, if you could spare a web programmer for a couple days, assuming the data is already in a database somewhere. Even if it isn't, your need for writeability means the UI should be easy.
First, open your PSD in ImageReady (free with Photoshop) to divide the image in slices around the ports. Export the different port colors as rollover states. Also export the HTML as a template for your web programmer.
On the server side, the programmer need to make DB queries to figure out which port gets which color port image.
Once done, add soem simple javascript to change port colors on the fly.
Lastly, a button need to recompile the current state into web request to update the serverside data.
Now you data is also distributed and with some read vs. write authorization, can help others without a tech support call.
Not being a UI demo, I would like to here from others who actually saw the demo.
From what I can infer, they have disregarded standard menubars entirely and moved to some tab switching toolbars. This gave the designers more room for icons, more varied button sizes, and not everything has to be described in two or three short words. This gives better visual destinction, which would be good for beginners and probably not bad for experts.
While tabbed UIs do imply hidden UI controls, so do drop down menus, so I won't complain there. My concern is that you have now created a moded UI. If I'm writting a document, and want to insert a URL, in drop down menus I click the insert menu and the URL menu item to get my URL dialog and am returned immediately to my previous writing context. With tabbed toolbars, it would seem I need an additional click to return to my "Write" mode toolbar. I'm sure I could just type while in "Insert" mode, but I'm more likely to need a "Write" mode function before I need another insert. This UI tends to favor a moded interaction: write my document first, then return later to do my inserts (tables, illustrations, text blocks, URL links, etc.).
The part I really don't understand is the second tab highlight. In one Word screen shot, you see a Write mode toolbar (with blue highlight on "Write") and a purple "Picture Tools" over "Picture Tools" highlight. In another screenshot, also in Write mode, the item "Contoso Legal" is highlighted in the mode bar in nearly the same blue. In an Excel screenshot, there no mode hightlight, but a green "Chart Tools" over the last three items "Create", "Layout", and "Format". I assume these "titled" items are somehow context specific, but are they other modes or drop down menus? And in either case, why do they need so much color to draw attention during other modes?
Also I notice each screenshot has first File, then a separator, undo and redo buttons, followed by the modes. Is there a mixing of UI models here?
but you post it again just to identify it as another section? This is why I don't like limited categorization system and why heirarchical ontologies/taxonomies are either full of exceptions like this, or of limited use.
I have the same problem with Mambo's/Joomla's section & category mentality (effectively equivalent to slashdot's sections and topics). What is so hard about allowing a content item to exist in multiple sections?
And I'm not talking about open ended tagging systems like Flickr or del.icio.us. Defining a consistent category set not only constrains the author's or editor's choice (which should ideally be easier), but also provides a gaurantee to the viewers and feed aggrogators that tangental categories won't arise after any prefernce selection.
But back to slashdot... What exactly is the point of the topics? I can only adjust my front page filter by section, so it seems the only thing I can do with topics is search by them.
Now I'm not sure how to do this. I doubt the DS can simulate the all the townspeople. But the gestures for petting/spanking, and casting spells is perfect for the touch screen (could try camera control/navigation also, but it already has a plus pad). Plus wireless online creature to creature interaction.
The islands and the challenges would have to be scaled back. Probably need to be some simplified puzzle-mission version of the original without the town building strategy elements.
Admittedly, this is closer to Nintendogs with a proper AI: reward AND punishment; reinforce any action, not just the premade animations; and a world more lively and self sustaining than a barren apartment.
I've never been fond of the notion of a corporation. That concept of a virtual entity whose sole purpose is to protect the people within it, the people who actually make decisions and perform the actions, from liability of their consequences.
And don't get me started on publicly traded corporations. The very idea that a board of directors is legally obligated to make decisions in favor of the bottom line number, and that shareholders can sue them if they don't seems incredibly obsurd to me.
By the way, love the quote. Adding it to my quotes list now. Probably a sign that I really do need to reread Smith after all these years.
Why part of my comment made me sound so anti-Walmart? Was it the part where I said cheap labor was in my benefit? Or was it the part when I said those jobs where actually well paying in their local economy? Oh, I know... It was the part where YOU DIDN'T READ THE COMMENT!!!
I have no problem with sending jobs elsewhere if they can provide the same quality, and they often can. In addition to being cheaper, it sends money from the haves (post-industrial first world nations) to the have nots, probably more efficiently than taxes and financial aid programs. I do have a problem with sweatshop labor, by which I mean substandard working conditions relative to other jobs in the same region, and over inflated middle-manager slaries. Both issues are often worked out by capitalism proper: better working conditions will attract more employees, and replacable middle-men will be replaced if they get too greedy.
Capitalism requires intelligent consumers to understand the pros and cons of every purchase.
No, it does not. Capitalism only requires that consumers act in their own self-interest. There is no need to "understand the pros and cons of every purchase", whatever that's supposed to mean.
To act in one's own interest, with respect to purchases, one should know the effect of the purchased item/service. That is all I'm saying.
When consumers don't care that they are getting less for their money and are loosing control then we get companies selling "DRM, propriatory solutions, and closed standards"
If consumers "control" the market then what you have isn't capitalism, but some strange form of pseudo-socialist bullshit.
I'm not refering to control of the market. I'm refering to control in the items they purchase, as in the ability to copy or share the music or book they bought. DRM wouldn't be an effective commercial strategy if people didn't buy it. Hence things like DivX (the Disney DVD format) never succeeded in the market. Unfortunately (in my opinion), other similar strategies are succeeding in the market.
No, you get that when you grant government the power to control the market by force, and then government turns around and sells it's capacity for violence to whomever has the cash.
Huh? The government isn't controling the market. The government isn't even creating DRM or pushing it into the market. The government does seem to be giving DRM legal validity, but there is nothing forcing every company to adopt it. We as the consumers have the right to choose whether we support the companies who do.
companies can appear to cheaper than open solutions because they know they've locked in future revenue streams.
If a company can "lock" customers into buying a single product then again, what you have isn't capitalism. This has nothing whatsoever to do with capitalism.
I agree, yet we have proprietary "patented" solutions to everything from razor blades to ink cartridge. Today's "capitalism" isn't capitalism at all.
Again, only intelligent consumers can influence the market to encourage the market to maintain good working conditions in these places.
So if said consumer doesn't happen to agree with what you think are "good working conditions" and act accordingly to promote them then that consumer isn't intelligent? Funny, according to Adam Smith a consumer buying lower-priced products from Walmart, manufactured by cheap labor in Asia, is in fact acting in his own best self-interest, which is a purely capitalistic ideal. The consumer in this instance is acting completely rationally - far more intelligently than the consumer who'll only purchase items with a "made in America" sticker on them.
Don't know what your reading into my statements. Especially when I specifically said cheap labor was in my benefit. I'm all for it and I have no problem with sending my money to Asia through them. But I also support the "Made in the USA" mentality. They are acting in their own self interest in recognizing the effect of unemployment upon their community and are willing to pay the difference. That is what I mean by intelligent consumer: one who looks beyond the price tag.
The same go for local jobs: if I care about how companies treat their employees and want to ensure fair treatment and benefits (e.g., avoid large scale downsizing), I have to support/purchase fromonly those companies that meet my values.
Which has zip to do with rational economic behavior or with capitalism. You're trying to promote a specific social agenda - in this case yours, and yours alone - not beat the drum for capitalism. Capitalism requires consumers to act in their own self-interest *as determined by them*, not as determined by you. I don't know what the hell you're selling, but it surely isn't capitalism, and you shouldn't be trying to mislead others into thinking it is.
The problem with today's captialism is the complacency of the consumer. Capitalism requires intelligent consumers to understand the pros and cons of every purchase. When consumers don't care that they are getting less for their money and are loosing control, then we get companies selling "DRM, propriatory solutions, and closed standards". Additionally, companies can appear to cheaper than open solutions because they know they've locked in future revenue streams.
Regarding "cheap 3rd world labour and large scale downsizing", these are choices of efficency implicitly promoted by capitalism. If the I can get the same labor so cheap it offsets the costs of additionaly shipping, it is in my benefit and it is in the benefit of those who can prvide teh labor. Remember, compared to many other jobs in these places they are well paying. Again, only intelligent consumers can influence the market to encourage the market to maintain good working conditions in these places. The same go for local jobs: if I care about how companies treat their employees and want to ensure fair treatment and benefits (e.g., avoid large scale downsizing), I have to support/purchase fromonly those companies that meet my values.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, the page on my site is intentional. I don't have anything worth putting up publicly. At least not yet. I'm hoping to find time before the end of the year to get that going again.
Anm
A friend of a friend was strongly involved in this, so I've had so time to look into it. First off, social networking based apps strongly benefit from a shared userbase and a shared tag library. Ning provides both to an developer. Well structured apps also get the benefit of sharing data, such as pets.ning.com, where all pets are aggregated, but anyone can make a site geared toward a specific breed. Not only to you build a closer community, but every new entry added at your specialized app adds value to the aggregate. There is a set of content types (pictures, discussion posts, people profiles, etc.) that nearly app could reuse, thus offering a huge benefit from this structure.
The biggest issue I see is usability for the consumer. The framework provides an impressive backend, but most of the frontend (HTML/PHP) is handled by the individual app developers. Every app is likely to look and act completely different.
While I do see this being a repository of abandoned apps, the Ning Pivot page should keep only the most active prominent. Someone compared it to Sourceforge, but despite the majority of apps that never got past planning, sourceforge remains useful to a huge number of projects. Same thing applies here.
I do see a namespace problem creeping in, both for app namespaces and content type name spaces. Sharing the data structures is going to get tricky, being both distributed and decentralized development platform.
With Yahoo's recent spending spree on Web2.0 (flickr.com, upcoming.net, etc.) this will be an interesting competitor. Can Ning "open source" mentality of app building really allow the community to build a better picture database? Will 24HL be able to focus on developer support and a foundational library while Yahoo is dedicating teams to every section?
Anm
If commercial softwarre ever wanted to prove their value over decentralized open source, this is it. Without a centralized authority and a large pile of money, open source can never provide the liability guarantee of a corporation. Very few open source projects have this backing, and very few capable backers would support open source. This could provide a balanced duality in the software world: either grab the software for free and accept the liability, or buy into commercial software with a gaurantee.
Such liability contracts should also promote pro-active testing, testing that actively tries to break the rules and testing logic that looks for problems at the source level. Most testing habits involve testing against the rules while ignoring the unexpected cases where most exploits occur. Being liable for such exploits would put some heavy pressure to change those habits.
Anm
While I haven't played Revenge, I really hated what they did with Crash mode in 3. The stupid x2 and x4 were basically a series of connect the dots. As long as you could make it from point A to B to C, you won without thinking. Childsplay. Even if you wanted to ignore the multipliers, they made the medal scale so steep, there is no way to achieve the gold without them.
In B2 you actually had to thinking about the physics and car interaction without the shiny little hints littering the road. This also leaves more possible solutions to pic from and opens up a little bit of replay value. It sounds like Revenge is a step in the right direction, but I won't know until I play it.
As for the car checking, I thik I agree. Why bother steering if you can just run through everything. While I like the idea of utilizing other cars, it sounds like it needs a little skill invovled (like only allowing side-to-side checking, or requiring a opposite direction flick at the last second).
I'm not sure what you talking about button mashing, as it doesn't jive with what I've read about the reviews.
Anm
No one thinks LSD is alive, so why would you think proteins are?
Oh, I don't know about that. I thought my tabs were dancing for me one day.
Anm
And the parsing of javascript is also done in native code. The very fact that XML has a Javascript interface implies the browser "still ends up having to create a lot of objects in interpreted code". And the underlying design of DOM makes me think there will actually be more objects created through XML than through JSON. Remember, the JSON objects are almost all primitives in the Javascript language and there is a lot of optimization surrounding them.
Anm
I stand corrected.
I think I can manage to brute force 1185 keys by hand, let alone with a computer. (Guess the tag didn't copy into the text input very well.)
Anm
One of the other features that I liked is the fast primary drive, and back-up, slower, but RAIDed drives.
Hemos, I won't be tresting that RAID-0 to backup anything. It is strictly a user feature so you can claim you have a really big dic^Hsk.
Anm
Umm.. I'm curious. Why do you keep calling his quadrance a 'squadrance'?
Word was first relased in 1983 for DOS and then '85 for Mac. Word for Windows didn't come around until '89.
Excel, while not Microsoft's first spreadsheet, originated on the Mac in '85. Windows didn't get their share until '87.
Anm
(PS- nice slashdot id, neighbor)
Bad use of the term distributed.
The data is centralized but easily accessible from remote locations.
Anm
Here's what I'd do, if you could spare a web programmer for a couple days, assuming the data is already in a database somewhere. Even if it isn't, your need for writeability means the UI should be easy.
First, open your PSD in ImageReady (free with Photoshop) to divide the image in slices around the ports. Export the different port colors as rollover states. Also export the HTML as a template for your web programmer.
On the server side, the programmer need to make DB queries to figure out which port gets which color port image.
Once done, add soem simple javascript to change port colors on the fly.
Lastly, a button need to recompile the current state into web request to update the serverside data.
Now you data is also distributed and with some read vs. write authorization, can help others without a tech support call.
Anm
Thanks for the explainations. Now I'm curious about the look of it docked elsewhere.
well you forgot to lock the thread while you were posting.
While I was looking up the link, you were posting. That's the web for you.
Anm
Not being a UI demo, I would like to here from others who actually saw the demo.
From what I can infer, they have disregarded standard menubars entirely and moved to some tab switching toolbars. This gave the designers more room for icons, more varied button sizes, and not everything has to be described in two or three short words. This gives better visual destinction, which would be good for beginners and probably not bad for experts.
While tabbed UIs do imply hidden UI controls, so do drop down menus, so I won't complain there. My concern is that you have now created a moded UI. If I'm writting a document, and want to insert a URL, in drop down menus I click the insert menu and the URL menu item to get my URL dialog and am returned immediately to my previous writing context. With tabbed toolbars, it would seem I need an additional click to return to my "Write" mode toolbar. I'm sure I could just type while in "Insert" mode, but I'm more likely to need a "Write" mode function before I need another insert. This UI tends to favor a moded interaction: write my document first, then return later to do my inserts (tables, illustrations, text blocks, URL links, etc.).
The part I really don't understand is the second tab highlight. In one Word screen shot, you see a Write mode toolbar (with blue highlight on "Write") and a purple "Picture Tools" over "Picture Tools" highlight. In another screenshot, also in Write mode, the item "Contoso Legal" is highlighted in the mode bar in nearly the same blue. In an Excel screenshot, there no mode hightlight, but a green "Chart Tools" over the last three items "Create", "Layout", and "Format". I assume these "titled" items are somehow context specific, but are they other modes or drop down menus? And in either case, why do they need so much color to draw attention during other modes?
Also I notice each screenshot has first File, then a separator, undo and redo buttons, followed by the modes. Is there a mixing of UI models here?
Anm
15 years ago, you say? Huh. Where did you get your time machine?
Anm
but you post it again just to identify it as another section? This is why I don't like limited categorization system and why heirarchical ontologies/taxonomies are either full of exceptions like this, or of limited use.
I have the same problem with Mambo's/Joomla's section & category mentality (effectively equivalent to slashdot's sections and topics). What is so hard about allowing a content item to exist in multiple sections?
And I'm not talking about open ended tagging systems like Flickr or del.icio.us. Defining a consistent category set not only constrains the author's or editor's choice (which should ideally be easier), but also provides a gaurantee to the viewers and feed aggrogators that tangental categories won't arise after any prefernce selection.
But back to slashdot... What exactly is the point of the topics? I can only adjust my front page filter by section, so it seems the only thing I can do with topics is search by them.
Anm
While I love Darwinia... it doesn't even come close to the gesture interface developed in B&W.
But on that note, Darwinia would probably make a good port for DS.
Anm
Now I'm not sure how to do this. I doubt the DS can simulate the all the townspeople. But the gestures for petting/spanking, and casting spells is perfect for the touch screen (could try camera control/navigation also, but it already has a plus pad). Plus wireless online creature to creature interaction.
The islands and the challenges would have to be scaled back. Probably need to be some simplified puzzle-mission version of the original without the town building strategy elements.
Admittedly, this is closer to Nintendogs with a proper AI: reward AND punishment; reinforce any action, not just the premade animations; and a world more lively and self sustaining than a barren apartment.
Anm
Speaking of which, shouldn't the iPod Nano be called the iPod Micro? I mean they just skipped a SI measurement didn't they?
Are you suggesting there is such thing as a mini-meter or a mini-gram?
Anm
I've never been fond of the notion of a corporation. That concept of a virtual entity whose sole purpose is to protect the people within it, the people who actually make decisions and perform the actions, from liability of their consequences.
And don't get me started on publicly traded corporations. The very idea that a board of directors is legally obligated to make decisions in favor of the bottom line number, and that shareholders can sue them if they don't seems incredibly obsurd to me.
By the way, love the quote. Adding it to my quotes list now. Probably a sign that I really do need to reread Smith after all these years.
Anm
Why part of my comment made me sound so anti-Walmart? Was it the part where I said cheap labor was in my benefit? Or was it the part when I said those jobs where actually well paying in their local economy? Oh, I know... It was the part where YOU DIDN'T READ THE COMMENT!!!
I have no problem with sending jobs elsewhere if they can provide the same quality, and they often can. In addition to being cheaper, it sends money from the haves (post-industrial first world nations) to the have nots, probably more efficiently than taxes and financial aid programs. I do have a problem with sweatshop labor, by which I mean substandard working conditions relative to other jobs in the same region, and over inflated middle-manager slaries. Both issues are often worked out by capitalism proper: better working conditions will attract more employees, and replacable middle-men will be replaced if they get too greedy.
Anm
Capitalism requires intelligent consumers to understand the pros and cons of every purchase.
No, it does not. Capitalism only requires that consumers act in their own self-interest. There is no need to "understand the pros and cons of every purchase", whatever that's supposed to mean.
To act in one's own interest, with respect to purchases, one should know the effect of the purchased item/service. That is all I'm saying.
When consumers don't care that they are getting less for their money and are loosing control then we get companies selling "DRM, propriatory solutions, and closed standards"
If consumers "control" the market then what you have isn't capitalism, but some strange form of pseudo-socialist bullshit.
I'm not refering to control of the market. I'm refering to control in the items they purchase, as in the ability to copy or share the music or book they bought. DRM wouldn't be an effective commercial strategy if people didn't buy it. Hence things like DivX (the Disney DVD format) never succeeded in the market. Unfortunately (in my opinion), other similar strategies are succeeding in the market.
No, you get that when you grant government the power to control the market by force, and then government turns around and sells it's capacity for violence to whomever has the cash.
Huh? The government isn't controling the market. The government isn't even creating DRM or pushing it into the market. The government does seem to be giving DRM legal validity, but there is nothing forcing every company to adopt it. We as the consumers have the right to choose whether we support the companies who do.
companies can appear to cheaper than open solutions because they know they've locked in future revenue streams.
If a company can "lock" customers into buying a single product then again, what you have isn't capitalism. This has nothing whatsoever to do with capitalism.
I agree, yet we have proprietary "patented" solutions to everything from razor blades to ink cartridge. Today's "capitalism" isn't capitalism at all.
Again, only intelligent consumers can influence the market to encourage the market to maintain good working conditions in these places.
So if said consumer doesn't happen to agree with what you think are "good working conditions" and act accordingly to promote them then that consumer isn't intelligent? Funny, according to Adam Smith a consumer buying lower-priced products from Walmart, manufactured by cheap labor in Asia, is in fact acting in his own best self-interest, which is a purely capitalistic ideal. The consumer in this instance is acting completely rationally - far more intelligently than the consumer who'll only purchase items with a "made in America" sticker on them.
Don't know what your reading into my statements. Especially when I specifically said cheap labor was in my benefit. I'm all for it and I have no problem with sending my money to Asia through them. But I also support the "Made in the USA" mentality. They are acting in their own self interest in recognizing the effect of unemployment upon their community and are willing to pay the difference. That is what I mean by intelligent consumer: one who looks beyond the price tag.
The same go for local jobs: if I care about how companies treat their employees and want to ensure fair treatment and benefits (e.g., avoid large scale downsizing), I have to support/purchase fromonly those companies that meet my values.
Which has zip to do with rational economic behavior or with capitalism. You're trying to promote a specific social agenda - in this case yours, and yours alone - not beat the drum for capitalism. Capitalism requires consumers to act in their own self-interest *as determined by them*, not as determined by you. I don't know what the hell you're selling, but it surely isn't capitalism, and you shouldn't be trying to mislead others into thinking it is.
The problem with today's captialism is the complacency of the consumer. Capitalism requires intelligent consumers to understand the pros and cons of every purchase. When consumers don't care that they are getting less for their money and are loosing control, then we get companies selling "DRM, propriatory solutions, and closed standards". Additionally, companies can appear to cheaper than open solutions because they know they've locked in future revenue streams.
Regarding "cheap 3rd world labour and large scale downsizing", these are choices of efficency implicitly promoted by capitalism. If the I can get the same labor so cheap it offsets the costs of additionaly shipping, it is in my benefit and it is in the benefit of those who can prvide teh labor. Remember, compared to many other jobs in these places they are well paying. Again, only intelligent consumers can influence the market to encourage the market to maintain good working conditions in these places. The same go for local jobs: if I care about how companies treat their employees and want to ensure fair treatment and benefits (e.g., avoid large scale downsizing), I have to support/purchase fromonly those companies that meet my values.
Anm