I don't see this being done. Whatever Hollywood comes up with, good or bad, is going to be heavily compressed. Already people are saying that Tetsuo and Kaneda will be cast as brothers, which totally sidesteps the whole fraternity/pledge thing and replaces it with Saving Private Ryan.
Live action *could* be good. They could make the characters appropriately scary. As it stands, Kaneda's a goofball, and Tetsuo looks nine years old. In live action, they could give these characters some...oomph?
I doubt they will. In Hollywood, everything has to have neat moral meaning. Kaneda won't be slimy, just witty. The Marshal will start off distrusting his employers. Kei will stop being annoying and become literal. Tetsuo will probably have a redemption, at which point you are free to leave the theater, numb the pain with alcohol, and watch The Matrix and/or Fight Club for the 27th time.
The genius of Akira was the absence of clear answers. No single character had any idea what the fuck was going on. It was only when Tetsuo threatened the city that a bunch of people put aside their petty differences and focused on reality. Even then, some of them didn't.
Yet all their sudden goodwill couldn't save them from Tetsuo. They created an immature, ego-driven monster and it went right out of control . They had to open the bottle - Akira - to blow up the city and take away the evil for them.
Just like when we dropped the bomb.
The nuclear image frames the movie like a pair of bookends. The nuke, the "elephant in the room" for every Japanese debate about... self-worth, self-control, damn near everything.
For comparison, Saving Private Ryan is framed by scenes of old men paying their respects to fallen comrades. Awww...*sniffle* The bittersweet tears of the victor...competent, morally true, and assured an eventual victory. How nice for us. Ask the Japanese how they feel about themselves.
This project is comparable to Dune. Too much interplay of morally-neutral characters to do anything but pictoralize. Best-case scenario: Just as confusing as the original. Worst-case: Americanized.
The move to take action against Rage fans was taken completely unilaterally by our new management. In their zeal to keep the record from getting out before the release date, they did not consult the band before instructing Sony Music Corp. to institute the Napster ban.
Sony: "OK, we're all set on this end. Now you guys go make a big stink about this."
>Once you get out of the habbit of doing homework, it is pretty >difficult to get back into the saddle.
Gee, I wonder why that is? I mean, if homework was so fucking cool and empowering, then...
I took time off from school. When I went back, homework was easier than it was before. The problem is, I didn't want to do it. It was mind-numbingly simplistic.
One time a friend asked me, "If bad eyesight is a dominant gene, then how did people survive before glasses?"
I've wondered that myself. The answer, I think, is pretty obvious.
Bad eyesight is not a dominant gene.
Rather, the dominant gene is for normal eyesight, which degrades when not exercised. The recessive gene is for perfect, incorruptible eyesight.
You know, back before *everyone* wore glasses, there was a time when only book-nerds wore glasses. That was in this century. If the dominant gene is truly for "bad eyesight," then there wouldn't be time for the gene pool to alter so quickly like that.
Take off your glasses. It works. In fact, you'll probably notice a difference within a day. Take them off now, then come back on-line tomorrow and relate your experience. As an alternative, simply flame away with the b$ your optomitrist told you.
As for LASIK, I look at it like liposuction. If you're not willing to exercise, then sure, just go in there with a vacuum and suck out the fat. Be prepared for the side-effects of this invasive correction.
If you're a developer, then you might as well get the LASIK. You have the money for LASIK but not the time or the lifestyle to go outdoors.
I'm willing to believe that this keyboard is cool, but the fact is, there is no such thing as the perfect keyboard. Any kind of repetitive motion will cause some muscles to grow and others to atrophy. The result is that you are going to have to exercise those atrophied muscles no matter what keyboard you choose.
I'm glad to see that digital consumer electronics are finally starting to take off again. A few years ago, the only market-safe products were game consoles, but now we have cellphones, PDA's, DVR's, and now e-book readers. Think about how nice it would be not to have to lug a shitload of textbooks around. I'm looking forward to the day when these kinds of devices are ubiquitous, and people are trading e-books as easily as mp3's. It's time for information to be free.
'Clearly' gives away propoganda 9 out of 10 times.
I honestly don't know it's that bad, I think a lot of the time it is just another emphasis word. But it's worth pointing out that spotting propaganda takes attention and diligence. Good propaganda is crafted down to the last word, and often the flaws are easily glossed over.
One trick is that propaganda makes an emotional impact without making a discernible point. I see this trick work far too often on the elderly. Some huckster calls up grandma, says "you won" this or that, and the emotional resonance never fades to the point where she can think clearly about what this person really wants.
These tricks can be defeated if you understand how easy they really are. But none of them are obvious, which is why those of us who understand propaganda tactics should make an effort to educate people and spread the word.
Here on Slashdot it's not so much of a big deal if people get hoaxed from time to time. But when you're talking about public policy, media standards, or elected leadership, the ability to cut through the hype becomes crucial for the functioning of a democratic society.
This article is much more in-depth and does a better job of representing the technology. The article posted to Slashdot implies that Cromatica can predict a mugging. Cromatica identifies congestion and predicts suicide attempts. And it does this with pretty simple algorithms.
Briefly: Cromatica views crowds as changing colors against a background. When the colors stop, this is congestion. Likewise, suicide attempts are indicated by lingering for 10 minutes or more. It's pretty easy to identify a single person against an empty backdrop.
Of course, people are working on predicting muggings, and the article goes into that as well.
The article also has links to the research itself.
No, it's being renamed The Twin Towers. Or better yet, The World Trade Center, New York City. Or how about, Attack of the Terrorist Drones. Maybe The Phantom Arab Menace? A New Hope for the Al-Quaeda Network? The 'Evil Empire' Strikes Back? Return of the Mujadeen?
2001: An Urban Crisis Oddysey? Osama of Arabia? The Wizard of Afghanistan? The Day the Earth Watched TV? Birth of a Palestinian Nation? Casabinladen?
All of these would be much less likely to remind people of the terrible events of September 11, and might even promote positive connotations of other successful films. A double-win for studio execs, right here free of charge on Slashdot.
No, I think what happened is that in their flagrant disregard for originality, TPM screenwriters simply flailed around and grabbed the nearest handy stereotypes with which to populate their movie. Make the goofball a negro, make the owner a jew, make the alliance chinese. If you keep this up, you can write a whole screenplay and you never have to stop and think.
It's pretty common, actually. Turn on the TV and look at how many characters are stereotyped. Irish cops, Italian thugs, Mexican street punks. It's all okay as long as you offer a portrayal that does justice to the character's background. The reason why TPM came off racist is because they were lazy about it.
As for whether to inform kids of these subtleties, don't. Otherwise they will go to school and say, "My daddy says that TPM is full of racist stereotypes." And all the other kids, who are still grappling with 2+2=4, will say, "You are such a dork." WHAM!
Better to keep your kids stupid and naive. Insight is a curse and not appreciated. I mean, what would happen if you told him that Lucas hasn't made an honest film since THX, and has admitted that much repeatedly over the years? He'd probably end up on Slashdot, arguing against the wind with people who ignore Lucas' own statements and believe, blindly, that Lucas' mass-market urge is a recent phenomenon. What a crazy nut! Just leave your kids alone, life will be easier for them if they learn to take their cues from the group.
"If you thought that Angelina Jolie was hot, check out this month's interview with George Lucas! Fat, unkempt, reclusive, and very authoritarian, George was a promising young auteur until he decided instead to focus his career on revenge. Some of his works from that period are now considered classics, but George is not deterred. He has recut this strangely-revered pulp, proving once and for all that his love affair with film ended a long time ago.
"Today, George is churning out new pre-teen cartoons with machine-like efficiency and has established the distribution network to send them far, far away. He is truly 'the Force' to be reckoned with in mass-marketing, intellectual property law, and digital rights management. We are pleased that George allowed us to help him self-promote his new cartoon, Attack of the Clones!"
This must be a troll because AFAIK Apple invented the guidelines against overuse of OK/Cancel.
I was looking at their HI Guidelines just now, and you're right, they do recommend naming buttons by verbs. They do a good job of contrasting OK with Done and Cancel with Stop. However, they seem just as attached to the concept of OK and Cancel, because they spend a great deal of time articulating and defining what these words mean:
In the case of immediate document updating, the OK button means "accept this change" and the Cancel button means "undo all changes done by this dialog box."
How about Accept? No, let's pick OK and then translate it.
They also classify pop-up windows into three categories, two of which result in nothing but OK. The third kind has just OK and Cancel. In fact, OK and Cancel are littered everywhere throughout the HI Guidelines. Mac and OK are in love.
Not much of a troll; I intuited their actual written policy, which is that OK is the Macintosh Verb. Cancel I can live with, cancel is actually in the dictionary as a verb.
Furthermore, the fact that Macintosh articulated a verb-only policy and then picked an adjective as their primary verb says something not-so-subtle about the kind of respect they have for their users.
If I wrote a GUI, I would at least have enough respect for my users to pick Awesome instead of OK. That way, when the computer crashed, the user could click on a button that said, "Awesome." But Macintosh is not awesome, Macintosh is OK, literally hundreds of times a day. What a comforting thing for buggy piece of software to say...
Do you think that the more I drive the more I want to jump outta my window because somehow I've become such an expert at driving that I would jump outta my window?? Does that make sense to you??
No, what makes sense to me is that they weld the door shut to make the car safer in a crash:P
In the army all interfaces on anything are written for the lowest common denominator. Any Joe Schmuck can come off the street and jump into a Hummer and get by, any Joe Schmuck can learn how to effectively fire a m16.
Well, actually driving a car takes about 3-6 months to learn. I'm sure I could fire an M-16 but I doubt I could handle the kick, hit targets, and clean it without someone to show me how.
I'd say that cars and guns aren't the best examples of things that are drop-dead easy to use. They are examples of good interfaces, though. If a sharpshooter can fire an M-16 better than a trainee, then that's a good interface. But on Windows, I can't batch rename files any faster than my grandma can. That's a bad interface, because the power of the machine is being thrown in the trash.
Who needs power when grandma just wants to get on the internet? Never mind that all she's going to do is download viruses, sign up for Passport and install Comet Cursor. They have yet to make a car with a big fat START button for my half-blind grandma, but they think they can program a way for her to drive safe on the internet. Not bloody likely, unless you toss out the "safe" part.
She can work at McDonald's, though, because those fast-food machines have been thoroughly de-skilled. They have made sure that those machines can be operated by everyone. They are automatic and they have START buttons, which means that if they don't like you, they just fire you and hire my grandma instead.
It's a great system. Grandma gets a crack at a low-paying, exploitative job, the burgers taste like shit, and the consumer pays $5 for the chance to eat a piece of some immigrant meatpacker's arm. All made possible by the fact that the machines can be used by "everyone."
Cars and guns are for anyone. Not everyone. But the hype is that computing is for everyone. Well, if that's true, then what do you need me for? Answer: Not much. And in that scenario, the computing experience will be about as impressive as a fast-food hamburger.
Ok is usually the right most button on a dialog in the Mac world, with windows it is the left most button
The fact that both of them have OK buttons is indicative of how little UI design went into either platform.
OK, Cancel, Yes and No buttons are the worst, because they require you to read and comprehend a paragraph of text before you click. I've never seen a situation where OK and Cancel couldn't be replaced with Save/Don't Save, Restart/Don't Restart, Proceed/Do Nothing. This is critical, because Cancel doesn't always mean Do Nothing. It should, but since it doesn't, semantic labelling neatly solves the problem.
You very rarely see it. And IIRC, you see OK buttons on Macs more than anywhere else. Not surprising, as the Mac paradigm seems to be that users need to remain ignorant. Try that with an automobile...
2. There is no such thing as a beginner, intermediate or advanced user when it comes to usability.
Sure there is. A novice user will tolerate a slow, heavy interface if it is more helpful. If it is their first time at a particular task, it doesn't matter how long it takes (think graphical wizards). An advanced user wants the interface to get out of the way.
A good interface supports both behaviors. In other words, every interface should have both an optimally helpful and optimally efficient way of accomplishing a task. They can never be the same thing.
Furthermore, a great interface has a built-in tendency to turn you into an expert. Video games excel at this; by the time you beat the game, you are certainly an expert. Of course, this model isn't as well suited to application software, but still, too often I see interfaces written solely for novices, in flagrant disregard for people's natural tendency to learn and gain skill over time.
Would you rather jump through your window to get out of your car or use a latch mechanism to open the door?
I think this proves my point, because race drivers do jump in and out of the window. I'm sure they would prefer a handle, but it conflicts with their other needs.
Their impression of the OS (speaking of normal PC users) begins with the graphic interface.
Oh GOD yes. Every once in a while, somebody asks me, "What is Linux like?" This question stumps me every time.
I can't say that it's more command-line oriented, because these people have never seen a command line. I can't say that it's more stable, because it's not the answer they're looking for. What they want to know is, what's the experience of using Linux. Yet if I try to say that Linux is more flexible or customizable, again I get a blank stare because this is not part of their computing experience.
I mean, if they were asking about Daiwoo vs. Porsche, I could say that one is fast, better built, or longer lasting. Somehow this doesn't work with Windows vs. Linux. It's like their whole concept of computing is that there is a mouse, and there is a bitmap. Every time I have this question asked of me, I am reminded that these people are utterly at the mercy of the industry.
Start Button:...Limiting this function to a one one-hundreth the screen space in the most unused corner of the monitor is almost perverse. Right-clicking the desktop makes so much more sense.
Actually, to me the start button seems like one of the best innovations. The location is constant, the menus do fill the screen, and by dropping My Computer in there, I can literally use the start menu for everything. The large power to space ratio is actually an accomplishment. By contrast, right clicking means that the menu behavior will change dramatically based on the cursor location. I prefer my context menus small and concise for this reason.
Single desktop: Still! It's unbelievable...
Yes, it is. Fortunately there is LiteStep. Of course, then you lose the power and elegance of the start button, but it doesn't sound to me like you'll miss that:)
UI design is ultimately about presentation, articulating the system's functionality in a natural, powerful, and engaging manner. But the ability to make a solid presentation is a rare human attribute. Otherwise, we'd all be superstars.
Michael Crichton, for example, is not the most rigorous author, but he understands presentation - his novels read like scripts. Likewise, Britney Spears is not a songwriter, but she is a polished act. Bill Clinton was a flawed leader, but we loved him anyway.
What these examples have in common is charisma. They have established a feedback loop with their audience, and they work hard to maintain it.
Apple continues to succeed because they understand that UI is about presentation, charisma, and connecting with the audience. Microsoft used to listen to their audience, which is how they got to this point. Linux is only starting.
I think the Gnome and KDE teams understand that UI is about charisma, which is why the flame wars are so rampant between their adherents. But I doubt that they are agonizing over the shape of their widgets the way that politicians agonize over their choice of words.
A good presentation involves sacrificing some of one's substance in favor of broad appeal. I remember the article about how first-time Gnome users had trouble identifying the footprint-labelled Start button. How about labelling it "Menu"? A modest, ego-less presentation can often help one's cause more than trumpeting one's depth and individuality.
But humans are born with tunnel vision, that's a fact. They present themselves to themselves and only the rarest among them look to the audience. Thus, I'm not holding my breath waiting for good UI. Not unless Clinton's pollsters and Britney's songwriters get in on the act, thereby dumbing it down and making it more accessible in the process. That's what Microsoft did with Windows95, and now look - Gnome and KDE have copied it, start button, taskbar and all.
Also, you appear to be confused about what themeing/skinning is. This is a feature that lets you change the way my GUI looks - I could have a grey windowsish look, a beige Mac look, a heavy industrial greenish look, whatever. It DOES NOT, I repeat DOES NOT change the layout of the interface or how it works. It only affects what it looks like.
I think that's his point, that the development resources being expended on theming and skinning could be better spent on actual functionality.
Software is unlike most any other product because of its complexity and nonlinearity....decades ago it was mathematically shown that in general you cannot prove whether an algorithm is bug-free....This is very different from designing bridges or buildings...
Best post so far. Software lemon laws would be great, but very difficult to do without taking the intent and/or general practices of the manufacturer into consideration.
Take as an analogy the auto industry. Ford had legal suits brought against it due to its possible problems with their cars. This is good for the general safety of consumers, but it results in almost zero amateur cars....This is what will happen to software if similar laws are applied to software.
That's a good point. However, it's a bit disingenous to imply that the automotive hobbyist has disappeared. There are veritable legions of people who mod cars, do body work, repair engines and work on the racing circuit. It's simply not cost-effective for hobbyists to build whole cars that comply to street-legal standards.
However, it's not quite as expensive to author "street legal" software. Some would argue that it's even cheaper for hobbyists than for corporations. Manufacturing would not be made more expensive by the author's proposal, just the testing and certification process.
If it turns out that only a handful of corporations are capable of authoring mass-market software under the proposed system, then so be it. I don't think the hobbyist market will disappear. It's hard to argue that auto hobbyists have been disenfranchised by the current system. The only hobbyist action that is currently restricted is to take an unsafe car onto a public road.
I obviously don't know how hard (if even possible) this would be, but hey, if nothing else, it sounds like there is potential here for good-quality wireless Internet for the masses back on good 'ol planet Earth. Maybe even a reasonable end to Internet for rural areas?
Ugh. Satellite has been tried. It's expensive and the latency is on the order of 500ms. Which means that in the implementations I've read about, they usually couple it with a modem for outbound requests and then use the satellite for downloads.
not true... those are just some of the popular home grown ones... many synthetics are really just that... synthetic copies of natural trugs... plus there are all sorts of things such as 5 MEO-DMT that are 100% natural and are also a neuro toxin...
Well, this is the basis for my original post:
Pot feels far less neurotoxic than Unisom Heroin feels far less neurotoxic than Vicodin/Oxycontin Caffeine feels far less neurotoxic than speed.
I agreed that natural drugs are not safer than synthetic ones in all cases. Someone made the excellent point that many natural drugs are actually natural poisons. However, I get an "alien" hangover far more often with synthetic drugs.
As another example, I have seen people become permanently catatonic from acid, but not from mushrooms, even though both drugs are just as potent. And of course, dissociatives are the worst, and I don't think any of these are natural.
Think about what it means to make a "copy," in terms of software, movies, or whatever. Usually there are unwarranted side-effects... there is no such thing as the perfect copy.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't see this being done. Whatever Hollywood comes up with, good or bad, is going to be heavily compressed. Already people are saying that Tetsuo and Kaneda will be cast as brothers, which totally sidesteps the whole fraternity/pledge thing and replaces it with Saving Private Ryan.
Live action *could* be good. They could make the characters appropriately scary. As it stands, Kaneda's a goofball, and Tetsuo looks nine years old. In live action, they could give these characters some...oomph?
I doubt they will. In Hollywood, everything has to have neat moral meaning. Kaneda won't be slimy, just witty. The Marshal will start off distrusting his employers. Kei will stop being annoying and become literal. Tetsuo will probably have a redemption, at which point you are free to leave the theater, numb the pain with alcohol, and watch The Matrix and/or Fight Club for the 27th time.
The genius of Akira was the absence of clear answers. No single character had any idea what the fuck was going on. It was only when Tetsuo threatened the city that a bunch of people put aside their petty differences and focused on reality. Even then, some of them didn't.
Yet all their sudden goodwill couldn't save them from Tetsuo. They created an immature, ego-driven monster and it went right out of control . They had to open the bottle - Akira - to blow up the city and take away the evil for them.
Just like when we dropped the bomb.
The nuclear image frames the movie like a pair of bookends. The nuke, the "elephant in the room" for every Japanese debate about... self-worth, self-control, damn near everything.
For comparison, Saving Private Ryan is framed by scenes of old men paying their respects to fallen comrades. Awww...*sniffle* The bittersweet tears of the victor...competent, morally true, and assured an eventual victory. How nice for us. Ask the Japanese how they feel about themselves.
This project is comparable to Dune. Too much interplay of morally-neutral characters to do anything but pictoralize. Best-case scenario: Just as confusing as the original. Worst-case: Americanized.
The move to take action against Rage fans was taken completely unilaterally by our new management. In their zeal to keep the record from getting out before the release date, they did not consult the band before instructing Sony Music Corp. to institute the Napster ban.
Sony: "OK, we're all set on this end. Now you guys go make a big stink about this."
RATM: "No prob, man. When the girls coming over?"
Sony: "About 45 minutes."
>Once you get out of the habbit of doing homework, it is pretty
>difficult to get back into the saddle.
Gee, I wonder why that is? I mean, if homework was so fucking cool and empowering, then...
I took time off from school. When I went back, homework was easier than it was before. The problem is, I didn't want to do it. It was mind-numbingly simplistic.
One time a friend asked me, "If bad eyesight is a dominant gene, then how did people survive before glasses?"
I've wondered that myself. The answer, I think, is pretty obvious.
Bad eyesight is not a dominant gene.
Rather, the dominant gene is for normal eyesight, which degrades when not exercised. The recessive gene is for perfect, incorruptible eyesight.
You know, back before *everyone* wore glasses, there was a time when only book-nerds wore glasses. That was in this century. If the dominant gene is truly for "bad eyesight," then there wouldn't be time for the gene pool to alter so quickly like that.
Take off your glasses. It works. In fact, you'll probably notice a difference within a day. Take them off now, then come back on-line tomorrow and relate your experience. As an alternative, simply flame away with the b$ your optomitrist told you.
As for LASIK, I look at it like liposuction. If you're not willing to exercise, then sure, just go in there with a vacuum and suck out the fat. Be prepared for the side-effects of this invasive correction.
If you're a developer, then you might as well get the LASIK. You have the money for LASIK but not the time or the lifestyle to go outdoors.
I'm willing to believe that this keyboard is cool, but the fact is, there is no such thing as the perfect keyboard. Any kind of repetitive motion will cause some muscles to grow and others to atrophy. The result is that you are going to have to exercise those atrophied muscles no matter what keyboard you choose.
I wonder how long it will be before somebody has linux running on one of these things.
I'm glad to see that digital consumer electronics are finally starting to take off again. A few years ago, the only market-safe products were game consoles, but now we have cellphones, PDA's, DVR's, and now e-book readers. Think about how nice it would be not to have to lug a shitload of textbooks around. I'm looking forward to the day when these kinds of devices are ubiquitous, and people are trading e-books as easily as mp3's. It's time for information to be free.
'Clearly' gives away propoganda 9 out of 10 times.
I honestly don't know it's that bad, I think a lot of the time it is just another emphasis word. But it's worth pointing out that spotting propaganda takes attention and diligence. Good propaganda is crafted down to the last word, and often the flaws are easily glossed over.
One trick is that propaganda makes an emotional impact without making a discernible point. I see this trick work far too often on the elderly. Some huckster calls up grandma, says "you won" this or that, and the emotional resonance never fades to the point where she can think clearly about what this person really wants.
These tricks can be defeated if you understand how easy they really are. But none of them are obvious, which is why those of us who understand propaganda tactics should make an effort to educate people and spread the word.
Here on Slashdot it's not so much of a big deal if people get hoaxed from time to time. But when you're talking about public policy, media standards, or elected leadership, the ability to cut through the hype becomes crucial for the functioning of a democratic society.
This article is much more in-depth and does a better job of representing the technology. The article posted to Slashdot implies that Cromatica can predict a mugging. Cromatica identifies congestion and predicts suicide attempts. And it does this with pretty simple algorithms.
Briefly: Cromatica views crowds as changing colors against a background. When the colors stop, this is congestion. Likewise, suicide attempts are indicated by lingering for 10 minutes or more. It's pretty easy to identify a single person against an empty backdrop.
Of course, people are working on predicting muggings, and the article goes into that as well.
The article also has links to the research itself.
No, it's being renamed The Twin Towers. Or better yet, The World Trade Center, New York City. Or how about, Attack of the Terrorist Drones. Maybe The Phantom Arab Menace? A New Hope for the Al-Quaeda Network? The 'Evil Empire' Strikes Back? Return of the Mujadeen?
2001: An Urban Crisis Oddysey? Osama of Arabia? The Wizard of Afghanistan? The Day the Earth Watched TV? Birth of a Palestinian Nation? Casabinladen?
All of these would be much less likely to remind people of the terrible events of September 11, and might even promote positive connotations of other successful films. A double-win for studio execs, right here free of charge on Slashdot.
No, I think what happened is that in their flagrant disregard for originality, TPM screenwriters simply flailed around and grabbed the nearest handy stereotypes with which to populate their movie. Make the goofball a negro, make the owner a jew, make the alliance chinese. If you keep this up, you can write a whole screenplay and you never have to stop and think.
It's pretty common, actually. Turn on the TV and look at how many characters are stereotyped. Irish cops, Italian thugs, Mexican street punks. It's all okay as long as you offer a portrayal that does justice to the character's background. The reason why TPM came off racist is because they were lazy about it.
As for whether to inform kids of these subtleties, don't. Otherwise they will go to school and say, "My daddy says that TPM is full of racist stereotypes." And all the other kids, who are still grappling with 2+2=4, will say, "You are such a dork." WHAM!
Better to keep your kids stupid and naive. Insight is a curse and not appreciated. I mean, what would happen if you told him that Lucas hasn't made an honest film since THX, and has admitted that much repeatedly over the years? He'd probably end up on Slashdot, arguing against the wind with people who ignore Lucas' own statements and believe, blindly, that Lucas' mass-market urge is a recent phenomenon. What a crazy nut! Just leave your kids alone, life will be easier for them if they learn to take their cues from the group.
He even said so in this month's Issue of Maxim.
God, what was he doing in Maxim?
"If you thought that Angelina Jolie was hot, check out this month's interview with George Lucas! Fat, unkempt, reclusive, and very authoritarian, George was a promising young auteur until he decided instead to focus his career on revenge. Some of his works from that period are now considered classics, but George is not deterred. He has recut this strangely-revered pulp, proving once and for all that his love affair with film ended a long time ago.
"Today, George is churning out new pre-teen cartoons with machine-like efficiency and has established the distribution network to send them far, far away. He is truly 'the Force' to be reckoned with in mass-marketing, intellectual property law, and digital rights management. We are pleased that George allowed us to help him self-promote his new cartoon, Attack of the Clones!"
I was looking at their HI Guidelines just now, and you're right, they do recommend naming buttons by verbs. They do a good job of contrasting OK with Done and Cancel with Stop. However, they seem just as attached to the concept of OK and Cancel, because they spend a great deal of time articulating and defining what these words mean:
How about Accept? No, let's pick OK and then translate it.
They also classify pop-up windows into three categories, two of which result in nothing but OK. The third kind has just OK and Cancel. In fact, OK and Cancel are littered everywhere throughout the HI Guidelines. Mac and OK are in love.
Not much of a troll; I intuited their actual written policy, which is that OK is the Macintosh Verb. Cancel I can live with, cancel is actually in the dictionary as a verb.
Furthermore, the fact that Macintosh articulated a verb-only policy and then picked an adjective as their primary verb says something not-so-subtle about the kind of respect they have for their users.
If I wrote a GUI, I would at least have enough respect for my users to pick Awesome instead of OK. That way, when the computer crashed, the user could click on a button that said, "Awesome." But Macintosh is not awesome, Macintosh is OK, literally hundreds of times a day. What a comforting thing for buggy piece of software to say...
Do you think that the more I drive the more I want to jump outta my window because somehow I've become such an expert at driving that I would jump outta my window?? Does that make sense to you??
:P
No, what makes sense to me is that they weld the door shut to make the car safer in a crash
In the army all interfaces on anything are written for the lowest common denominator. Any Joe Schmuck can come off the street and jump into a Hummer and get by, any Joe Schmuck can learn how to effectively fire a m16.
Well, actually driving a car takes about 3-6 months to learn. I'm sure I could fire an M-16 but I doubt I could handle the kick, hit targets, and clean it without someone to show me how.
I'd say that cars and guns aren't the best examples of things that are drop-dead easy to use. They are examples of good interfaces, though. If a sharpshooter can fire an M-16 better than a trainee, then that's a good interface. But on Windows, I can't batch rename files any faster than my grandma can. That's a bad interface, because the power of the machine is being thrown in the trash.
Who needs power when grandma just wants to get on the internet? Never mind that all she's going to do is download viruses, sign up for Passport and install Comet Cursor. They have yet to make a car with a big fat START button for my half-blind grandma, but they think they can program a way for her to drive safe on the internet. Not bloody likely, unless you toss out the "safe" part.
She can work at McDonald's, though, because those fast-food machines have been thoroughly de-skilled. They have made sure that those machines can be operated by everyone. They are automatic and they have START buttons, which means that if they don't like you, they just fire you and hire my grandma instead.
It's a great system. Grandma gets a crack at a low-paying, exploitative job, the burgers taste like shit, and the consumer pays $5 for the chance to eat a piece of some immigrant meatpacker's arm. All made possible by the fact that the machines can be used by "everyone."
Cars and guns are for anyone. Not everyone. But the hype is that computing is for everyone. Well, if that's true, then what do you need me for? Answer: Not much. And in that scenario, the computing experience will be about as impressive as a fast-food hamburger.
Ok is usually the right most button on a dialog in the Mac world, with windows it is the left most button
The fact that both of them have OK buttons is indicative of how little UI design went into either platform.
OK, Cancel, Yes and No buttons are the worst, because they require you to read and comprehend a paragraph of text before you click. I've never seen a situation where OK and Cancel couldn't be replaced with Save/Don't Save, Restart/Don't Restart, Proceed/Do Nothing. This is critical, because Cancel doesn't always mean Do Nothing. It should, but since it doesn't, semantic labelling neatly solves the problem.
You very rarely see it. And IIRC, you see OK buttons on Macs more than anywhere else. Not surprising, as the Mac paradigm seems to be that users need to remain ignorant. Try that with an automobile...
"You have crashed the car."
"OK!"
2. There is no such thing as a beginner, intermediate or advanced user when it comes to usability.
Sure there is. A novice user will tolerate a slow, heavy interface if it is more helpful. If it is their first time at a particular task, it doesn't matter how long it takes (think graphical wizards). An advanced user wants the interface to get out of the way.
A good interface supports both behaviors. In other words, every interface should have both an optimally helpful and optimally efficient way of accomplishing a task. They can never be the same thing.
Furthermore, a great interface has a built-in tendency to turn you into an expert. Video games excel at this; by the time you beat the game, you are certainly an expert. Of course, this model isn't as well suited to application software, but still, too often I see interfaces written solely for novices, in flagrant disregard for people's natural tendency to learn and gain skill over time.
Would you rather jump through your window to get out of your car or use a latch mechanism to open the door?
I think this proves my point, because race drivers do jump in and out of the window. I'm sure they would prefer a handle, but it conflicts with their other needs.
Their impression of the OS (speaking of normal PC users) begins with the graphic interface.
Oh GOD yes. Every once in a while, somebody asks me, "What is Linux like?" This question stumps me every time.
I can't say that it's more command-line oriented, because these people have never seen a command line. I can't say that it's more stable, because it's not the answer they're looking for. What they want to know is, what's the experience of using Linux. Yet if I try to say that Linux is more flexible or customizable, again I get a blank stare because this is not part of their computing experience.
I mean, if they were asking about Daiwoo vs. Porsche, I could say that one is fast, better built, or longer lasting. Somehow this doesn't work with Windows vs. Linux. It's like their whole concept of computing is that there is a mouse, and there is a bitmap. Every time I have this question asked of me, I am reminded that these people are utterly at the mercy of the industry.
Start Button: ...Limiting this function to a one one-hundreth the screen space in the most unused corner of the monitor is almost perverse. Right-clicking the desktop makes so much more sense.
:)
Actually, to me the start button seems like one of the best innovations. The location is constant, the menus do fill the screen, and by dropping My Computer in there, I can literally use the start menu for everything. The large power to space ratio is actually an accomplishment. By contrast, right clicking means that the menu behavior will change dramatically based on the cursor location. I prefer my context menus small and concise for this reason.
Single desktop: Still! It's unbelievable...
Yes, it is. Fortunately there is LiteStep. Of course, then you lose the power and elegance of the start button, but it doesn't sound to me like you'll miss that
UI design is ultimately about presentation, articulating the system's functionality in a natural, powerful, and engaging manner. But the ability to make a solid presentation is a rare human attribute. Otherwise, we'd all be superstars.
Michael Crichton, for example, is not the most rigorous author, but he understands presentation - his novels read like scripts. Likewise, Britney Spears is not a songwriter, but she is a polished act. Bill Clinton was a flawed leader, but we loved him anyway.
What these examples have in common is charisma. They have established a feedback loop with their audience, and they work hard to maintain it.
Apple continues to succeed because they understand that UI is about presentation, charisma, and connecting with the audience. Microsoft used to listen to their audience, which is how they got to this point. Linux is only starting.
I think the Gnome and KDE teams understand that UI is about charisma, which is why the flame wars are so rampant between their adherents. But I doubt that they are agonizing over the shape of their widgets the way that politicians agonize over their choice of words.
A good presentation involves sacrificing some of one's substance in favor of broad appeal. I remember the article about how first-time Gnome users had trouble identifying the footprint-labelled Start button. How about labelling it "Menu"? A modest, ego-less presentation can often help one's cause more than trumpeting one's depth and individuality.
But humans are born with tunnel vision, that's a fact. They present themselves to themselves and only the rarest among them look to the audience. Thus, I'm not holding my breath waiting for good UI. Not unless Clinton's pollsters and Britney's songwriters get in on the act, thereby dumbing it down and making it more accessible in the process. That's what Microsoft did with Windows95, and now look - Gnome and KDE have copied it, start button, taskbar and all.
Also, you appear to be confused about what themeing/skinning is. This is a feature that lets you change the way my GUI looks - I could have a grey windowsish look, a beige Mac look, a heavy industrial greenish look, whatever. It DOES NOT, I repeat DOES NOT change the layout of the interface or how it works. It only affects what it looks like.
I think that's his point, that the development resources being expended on theming and skinning could be better spent on actual functionality.
Software is unlike most any other product because of its complexity and nonlinearity....decades ago it was mathematically shown that in general you cannot prove whether an algorithm is bug-free....This is very different from designing bridges or buildings...
Best post so far. Software lemon laws would be great, but very difficult to do without taking the intent and/or general practices of the manufacturer into consideration.
Take as an analogy the auto industry. Ford had legal suits brought against it due to its possible problems with their cars. This is good for the general safety of consumers, but it results in almost zero amateur cars....This is what will happen to software if similar laws are applied to software.
That's a good point. However, it's a bit disingenous to imply that the automotive hobbyist has disappeared. There are veritable legions of people who mod cars, do body work, repair engines and work on the racing circuit. It's simply not cost-effective for hobbyists to build whole cars that comply to street-legal standards.
However, it's not quite as expensive to author "street legal" software. Some would argue that it's even cheaper for hobbyists than for corporations. Manufacturing would not be made more expensive by the author's proposal, just the testing and certification process.
If it turns out that only a handful of corporations are capable of authoring mass-market software under the proposed system, then so be it. I don't think the hobbyist market will disappear. It's hard to argue that auto hobbyists have been disenfranchised by the current system. The only hobbyist action that is currently restricted is to take an unsafe car onto a public road.
I obviously don't know how hard (if even possible) this would be, but hey, if nothing else, it sounds like there is potential here for good-quality wireless Internet for the masses back on good 'ol planet Earth. Maybe even a reasonable end to Internet for rural areas?
Ugh. Satellite has been tried. It's expensive and the latency is on the order of 500ms. Which means that in the implementations I've read about, they usually couple it with a modem for outbound requests and then use the satellite for downloads.
Never really caught on.
not if your latency still sucks :)
And considering that it's satellite, your latency is going to be about the worst you've ever seen.
not true... those are just some of the popular home grown ones... many synthetics are really just that... synthetic copies of natural trugs... plus there are all sorts of things such as 5 MEO-DMT that are 100% natural and are also a neuro toxin...
Well, this is the basis for my original post:
Pot feels far less neurotoxic than Unisom
Heroin feels far less neurotoxic than Vicodin/Oxycontin
Caffeine feels far less neurotoxic than speed.
I agreed that natural drugs are not safer than synthetic ones in all cases. Someone made the excellent point that many natural drugs are actually natural poisons. However, I get an "alien" hangover far more often with synthetic drugs.
As another example, I have seen people become permanently catatonic from acid, but not from mushrooms, even though both drugs are just as potent. And of course, dissociatives are the worst, and I don't think any of these are natural.
Think about what it means to make a "copy," in terms of software, movies, or whatever. Usually there are unwarranted side-effects... there is no such thing as the perfect copy.