So how do you serve the smaller market? Or, should the people who don't want the same things that you've identified the majority wants just shut up and take what they can get?
I don't understand what you're trying to say. How is it bad to have options? If you're going to not have options, you're assuming that you can engineer the system Perfectly, and that's a pretty dumb assumption.
Good solutions come out of competitive environments, not from engineers' heads. (with some conspicuous exceptions)
What happens when the one thing you do is not what the user wants you to do? I find vi loathsome. How does the fact that vi only does text editing make it more suitable for my needs, when the way it works is not compatible with the way I work?
In other words, isn't it a Good Thing that there are alternatives for people who are different from you?
The man has a track record of successful aircraft. I'm sure he doesn't lose any sleep about what you think of his testing methodologies. I know for certain I wouldn't.
I don't know why he wouldn't have done a ground test, but I'm willing to wager he's got some good reasons. The ultimate justification is success, which he got this afternoon.
"Well... PowerMacs use those same "kludgy" desktop components as do desktop PCs."
I get the feeling you're being intentionally dense. PowerMacs can get away with using those components, because PowerMacs are big. They're ALSO well-designed. They're easy to service, and quiet. They also have some attention paid to aesthetics (although I wouldn't call them "attractive" necessarily).
I don't care if routing cables through the frame is "novel", I care if it works well. And, having had to replace one of those cables, I can tell you: It doesn't work well. So what's your argument? Is it important to be serviceable, or "novel"?
"something that is fully functional but has poor form still performs its task fine. Something that has great form but lacks function is useless."
Depends on what you mean by "fully functional". When we're talking about servicing the internals of the machine, form is critical to function. When we're talking about the exterior, form is obviously not directly related to function.
You talk about dressing up a pig to solve PDEs. I'm not sure what exactly you're after with this comparison. However, if I've got $1400 to spend on a laptop, why wouldn't I buy a Powerbook that's attractive, well-designed, and very functional? If I'm spending $500, am I going to buy a Shuttle case (the latest of which costs $500 all by itself), or a mini?
"Engineering isn't about putting as much stuff you can into something."
Yet you think the Shuttle is a good design, because it uses kludgy desktop components. I think running the cables through the frame is a horrible hack. The Mac Mini uses compact components that are well-suited to the task.
"The design is finished when you cannot remove anything else and still achieve the goal of the design."
That's one school of thought. I don't think that minimalism is the only appropriate design philosophy, particularly for a machine that's as complex and versatile as a personal computer.
So you prize utility over aesthetics: That doesn't surprise me, but it's not the only way to skin a cat. I am not willing to buy a utilitarian design that is not also aesthetically pleasing. Different priorities.
There is more to design than utilitarianism, though, and that's where Apple excels.
The Shuttle aesthetics are acceptable, I suppose. However, working inside their cases is a nightmare. Therefore, I do not consider them well designed.
IBM servers and Dell servers might be reasonably well thought out on the interior, but their aesthetic design is pretty nondescript.
Design is form AND function. Both are important, and the best designers can make something that's beautiful and functional, with neither aspect compromising the other. None of those designers are in the employ of PC manufacturers, because PC manufacturers just don't care. Which is fine: They certainly don't have to. But they also won't get my money.
The atmosphere is not stationary with respect to space.
Of course, space is not stationary with respect to space, so your question becomes arbitrarily complicated.
I'd imagine the ground track was on the order of 37000 km. I'm pretty sure the airspeed*time measurement would be quite different, since he had a very favorable jet stream.
So, you're telling me you CAN'T name a single PC manufacturer that turns out well-designed hardware. OK. I agree. I don't think there is one either.
I don't have any allegiance to Apple, and I think Steve is kind of a jerk. But they have their hardware and software design dialed in, so I do buy their products. If they didn't, I wouldn't.
Really? Who else makes well-designed PCs? I've certainly not seen any. We'll even exclude software from the discussion, because Apple's software is far better designed than anything else on the market.
Hush Technologies has beautiful, well-designed boxes (cosmetically, anyhow). They also cost a mint, and I don't know what the internals look like. Who else?
I understand "concept" perfectly. I also know that it's much harder to engineer a small computer than to vacuum form a plastic shell.
I really don't care who copies who. (Picasso: Good artists copy. Great artists steal.) I do care who sells well-designed hardware. Nobody but Apple does that.
Again: Rutan is a better engineer than you or I. I'm pretty sure he didn't just decide "Well, screw the testing! Fly the sucker!" without thinking it through.
My argument against monopolies and monocultures is that "They're bad when they lead to lousy products". Since Apple must have state-of-the-art software in order to survive. If they were turning out crappy software to sabotage their competition, that would be one thing. As long as they're turning out best-of-breed solutions, I say more power to them (particularly since they have done a pretty good job of working with third parties when those parties are amenable).
On Windows, how many Office packages are there? How is that a monoculture?
Apple doesn't prevent other people from developing products. Their file formats are relatively open (except for the proprietary codecs like Sorensen that they pay lots of money to license), and their dev tools are really good.
Seriously, though: What's not to like about iMovie? What doesn't it do that you want it to do? I'd rather have one really good tool, than a bunch of half-assed ones (which is often the case with Windows solutions).
Audion and Watson's dev teams were offered opportunities to work with Apple, and they declined. Konfabulator is handy, but it's a memory pig. I'm certain Dashboard will be much better engineered. Konfabulator is also not substantially different on the surface from Desk Accessories that have been incorporated in MacOS since 1984. I've paid for Konfabulator, and I use it all the time, but I'm really eager to get to use Dashboard.
Maybe I'll see if I can transfer my Konf license to Windows. That'd be nice.
Are you seriously saying that Photo Editor and Movie Maker are even in the same league with iLife? If you are saying that, I don't think you've actually used the packages in question.
iLife is seriously good software. Microsoft's stuff is buzzword-compliant junk.
You're not seriously putting forward Dell as technologically innovative, are you? What do handheld computers have to do with desktops? Are you seriously thinking about editing movies on your PocketPC?
Yeah. I educated on the subject (although I certainly wouldn't pass myself off as an expert), and I'm telling you that that airplane can't land with a full fuel load, and people suggesting that it should are just wrong.
There's a difference between spouting off what your "common sense approach" might tell you about aeronautical engineering and design, and spouting off because you've actually studied the subject.
I certainly wouldn't argue that Burt Rutan or NASA knows all the answers...that would be silly. However, I guarantee they've considered all the low-hanging fruit that gets bandied about as good ideas here on Slashdot.
Slashdot Mirror
So how do you serve the smaller market? Or, should the people who don't want the same things that you've identified the majority wants just shut up and take what they can get?
I don't understand what you're trying to say. How is it bad to have options? If you're going to not have options, you're assuming that you can engineer the system Perfectly, and that's a pretty dumb assumption.
Good solutions come out of competitive environments, not from engineers' heads. (with some conspicuous exceptions)
If you think that improving the user interface comes from changing a skin, you don't understand the problem.
What happens when the one thing you do is not what the user wants you to do? I find vi loathsome. How does the fact that vi only does text editing make it more suitable for my needs, when the way it works is not compatible with the way I work?
In other words, isn't it a Good Thing that there are alternatives for people who are different from you?
The man has a track record of successful aircraft. I'm sure he doesn't lose any sleep about what you think of his testing methodologies. I know for certain I wouldn't.
I don't know why he wouldn't have done a ground test, but I'm willing to wager he's got some good reasons. The ultimate justification is success, which he got this afternoon.
"Well... PowerMacs use those same "kludgy" desktop components as do desktop PCs."
I get the feeling you're being intentionally dense. PowerMacs can get away with using those components, because PowerMacs are big. They're ALSO well-designed. They're easy to service, and quiet. They also have some attention paid to aesthetics (although I wouldn't call them "attractive" necessarily).
I don't care if routing cables through the frame is "novel", I care if it works well. And, having had to replace one of those cables, I can tell you: It doesn't work well. So what's your argument? Is it important to be serviceable, or "novel"?
"something that is fully functional but has poor form still performs its task fine. Something that has great form but lacks function is useless."
Depends on what you mean by "fully functional". When we're talking about servicing the internals of the machine, form is critical to function. When we're talking about the exterior, form is obviously not directly related to function.
You talk about dressing up a pig to solve PDEs. I'm not sure what exactly you're after with this comparison. However, if I've got $1400 to spend on a laptop, why wouldn't I buy a Powerbook that's attractive, well-designed, and very functional? If I'm spending $500, am I going to buy a Shuttle case (the latest of which costs $500 all by itself), or a mini?
"Engineering isn't about putting as much stuff you can into something."
Yet you think the Shuttle is a good design, because it uses kludgy desktop components. I think running the cables through the frame is a horrible hack. The Mac Mini uses compact components that are well-suited to the task.
"The design is finished when you cannot remove anything else and still achieve the goal of the design."
That's one school of thought. I don't think that minimalism is the only appropriate design philosophy, particularly for a machine that's as complex and versatile as a personal computer.
So you prize utility over aesthetics: That doesn't surprise me, but it's not the only way to skin a cat. I am not willing to buy a utilitarian design that is not also aesthetically pleasing. Different priorities.
There is more to design than utilitarianism, though, and that's where Apple excels.
The Shuttle aesthetics are acceptable, I suppose. However, working inside their cases is a nightmare. Therefore, I do not consider them well designed.
IBM servers and Dell servers might be reasonably well thought out on the interior, but their aesthetic design is pretty nondescript.
Design is form AND function. Both are important, and the best designers can make something that's beautiful and functional, with neither aspect compromising the other. None of those designers are in the employ of PC manufacturers, because PC manufacturers just don't care. Which is fine: They certainly don't have to. But they also won't get my money.
The atmosphere is not stationary with respect to space.
Of course, space is not stationary with respect to space, so your question becomes arbitrarily complicated.
I'd imagine the ground track was on the order of 37000 km. I'm pretty sure the airspeed*time measurement would be quite different, since he had a very favorable jet stream.
So, you're telling me you CAN'T name a single PC manufacturer that turns out well-designed hardware. OK. I agree. I don't think there is one either.
I don't have any allegiance to Apple, and I think Steve is kind of a jerk. But they have their hardware and software design dialed in, so I do buy their products. If they didn't, I wouldn't.
Really? Who else makes well-designed PCs? I've certainly not seen any. We'll even exclude software from the discussion, because Apple's software is far better designed than anything else on the market.
Hush Technologies has beautiful, well-designed boxes (cosmetically, anyhow). They also cost a mint, and I don't know what the internals look like. Who else?
I understand "concept" perfectly. I also know that it's much harder to engineer a small computer than to vacuum form a plastic shell.
I really don't care who copies who. (Picasso: Good artists copy. Great artists steal.) I do care who sells well-designed hardware. Nobody but Apple does that.
Sure. What store can I go buy one in? Oh, right. It was vaporware.
It also looks like the 20th Anniversary Macintosh that Apple shipped (as in, sold to customers in a store) around 1997. What's your point?
My point is, design studies are not useful to me. Hardware I can buy that is well designed is useful to me.
Again: Rutan is a better engineer than you or I. I'm pretty sure he didn't just decide "Well, screw the testing! Fly the sucker!" without thinking it through.
Whee, nice sentence fragment. Guess that happens when you have a server crash in the middle of a /. post. I love my job.
My argument against monopolies and monocultures is that "They're bad when they lead to lousy products". Since Apple must have state-of-the-art software in order to survive. If they were turning out crappy software to sabotage their competition, that would be one thing. As long as they're turning out best-of-breed solutions, I say more power to them (particularly since they have done a pretty good job of working with third parties when those parties are amenable).
Uh, yeah. Throw some RAM in there, and it's just fine. How do I know? Because I do it on my Powerbook, which is very similar spec.
Er, "How is that not a monoculture?"
On Windows, how many Office packages are there? How is that a monoculture?
Apple doesn't prevent other people from developing products. Their file formats are relatively open (except for the proprietary codecs like Sorensen that they pay lots of money to license), and their dev tools are really good.
Seriously, though: What's not to like about iMovie? What doesn't it do that you want it to do? I'd rather have one really good tool, than a bunch of half-assed ones (which is often the case with Windows solutions).
Audion and Watson's dev teams were offered opportunities to work with Apple, and they declined. Konfabulator is handy, but it's a memory pig. I'm certain Dashboard will be much better engineered. Konfabulator is also not substantially different on the surface from Desk Accessories that have been incorporated in MacOS since 1984. I've paid for Konfabulator, and I use it all the time, but I'm really eager to get to use Dashboard.
Maybe I'll see if I can transfer my Konf license to Windows. That'd be nice.
Are you seriously saying that Photo Editor and Movie Maker are even in the same league with iLife? If you are saying that, I don't think you've actually used the packages in question.
iLife is seriously good software. Microsoft's stuff is buzzword-compliant junk.
You're not seriously putting forward Dell as technologically innovative, are you? What do handheld computers have to do with desktops? Are you seriously thinking about editing movies on your PocketPC?
And what have they produced?
Nothing.
Yeah. I educated on the subject (although I certainly wouldn't pass myself off as an expert), and I'm telling you that that airplane can't land with a full fuel load, and people suggesting that it should are just wrong.
There's a difference between spouting off what your "common sense approach" might tell you about aeronautical engineering and design, and spouting off because you've actually studied the subject.
I certainly wouldn't argue that Burt Rutan or NASA knows all the answers...that would be silly. However, I guarantee they've considered all the low-hanging fruit that gets bandied about as good ideas here on Slashdot.
Rollers wouldn't be a problem. Vibration from said rollers in a flexible wing certainly could be a serious problem.
Since they're flying around the world without refuelling, I'd say yes, yes they did.