Damn, I'd have thought an F-16 taking off from an aircraft carrier would sound like this:
roooOOAAAAR! (engine spooling up) WhooooOOOO (Steam catapult starting up) SPRANG! (Nose gear snapping off airplane) OOOOOOOSHBANG!(catapult finishing run with nose gear attached) Scrapey-scrapey-ROOOAAaaaar KASPLASH! (airplane sliding off deck into water)
F-16's are for Air Force hosers who aren't good enough pilots to land on aircraft carriers. Naval Aviators fly F-18's.
Sorry, it's late, and the onomatopoeias struck me as funny. : )
See, I just don't trust a computer to "see the way I do things, and adjust accordingly". If I find a feature in one place, I expect it to be in that one place when I look for it again. For instance, it drives me to ABSOLUTE DISTRACTION when MS Orifice apps re-arrange their menu system on the fly. Now, of course, on any computer I actually have to WORK on, I kill this "feature" post-haste. Problem is, these computers I work on at school are administered by a fuckwit, and they forget every time I log in that no thank you I DON'T want Clippy, and leave my menus the hell alone thank you very much.
I guess I just haven't seen a good example of an adaptive interface. One that I can redesign to suit my needs, sure, but that takes me thinking through where I want to put stuff.
I'd feel the same way about somebody reorganizing my desk or my bookshelf. Sure, it might not be perfectly organized, but I can put my hand on whatever I need really fast. On a PDA, even more than on a PC (which some other poor schlock might have to use after I've set it up for myself), I want the UI to be fast, and if anything tailorable by me.
In other words, the effort you make to build a good adaptive interface would annoy experts (like you and me) and not really help the greys (who wouldn't understand what's going on).
For real, have you used the Palm interface? The basic UI for launching apps and changing preferences is pretty bombproof. Obviously, the UI for individual apps varies according to how much the writer hates you, but the stuff that comes in the box is pretty darn good. (Now, I can rattle off a bunch of stuff that's just NOT very good, but on the whole...it's good, FAST, UI.)
You'll pry PalmOS out of my cold dead hands. It's cheap, the batteries last forever, and it does everything I need it to. YMMV.
The purpose of an icon is to be, well, iconic. The distillation of the unique features of the thing it's supposed to symbolize.
So, from that perspective, a big screen in a little box with some sqiggly texty-stuff on it is a great icon for a PDA. If you did as you seem to be suggesting, you'd have to try to get a scale reference to figure out if it was a PDA or a laptop.
Just a UI thing that I think too few people pay attention to. Go about your business. Nothing to see here. : )
Tell me you guys are at least as pissed as I am about this whole (north) Dakota thing. What a bunch of losers.
Anyhow, yeah, cabling infrastructure is psychotically expensive. For a location like yours, satellite makes a hell of a lot of sense (even for internet access...as long as you don't play twitch games.:)
Isn't it fine to feel justified? Would you like a cookie to go with your I-told-you-so?
The NASA administrator said on day 1 that the Shuttle's nominal flight plan is the lowest-thermal-stress one. So, until I take you at your word, I'd like a citation from a reputable source.
I still do not believe that the engineers acted with malfeasance. Yes, they were in error. Yes, people died. No, I don't believe that it would have been possible for the engineers to have gotten more, useful, information.
Now, if you want to say "I told you so! I told you that Shuttle should be able to do a stem-to-stern inspection and repair while on orbit!" then that's fine. You can say that if you want to. The/reality/ remains that that is a terrifically difficult (and expensive) problem to solve, whose solution was not well motivated by circumstances.
Hindsight is 20-20. Of course all the problems are obvious now...they've already happened.
Pink was, for a while, the code name for Apple/IBM's new OS initiative, that was the brainchild of a "company" (or shared department or partnership or whatever) called Taligent. Pink was started somewhere in the 1993 neighborhood, to be completed somewhere around 1995-96. It was theorized that it would include a PC software emulator layer.
Pink development segue-d into Copland, which was killed off when Apple bought NeXT and got back Mr. Jobs. The one thing that surprises me is that Jobs still tolerates IBM: Back in the day, Jobs' vision was to destroy IBM. I guess he's not as iconoclastic as a lot of people think. Sure wish he'd kept Newton around, though.
Call me stupid, but if I buy a computer with a DVD drive in it, I expect to be able to watch DVDs in it. Hell, I've seen P3-400's play DVDs flawlessly (with hardware decoders, yes), but that's far from state of the art.
I'm about as big an Apple fan as you're likely to find, but your justification is just bullshit.
As long as the Republicans and Democrats control who gets on the nationwide ballots, no, there de facto only two parties in America.
I sure would like to change that, but guess what? In order to do that, you'd have to pass legislation through a Congress controlled lock, stock, and barrel by the two party system.
Third parties will always be the exception, and will never command substantial political power.
There is also a huge difference between a desktop system (in a minitower) and one of these all-in-one integrated jobs. I'll bet you a shiny quarter that the device reviewed uses either a laptop motherboard, or something quite similar.
Had it been the astronaut's decision, certainly not. However (in this very contrived situation that we do not know to have existed), NASA administrators would have had to risk not only the lives of nine crews, but also two shuttles and the future of manned spaceflight.
There's been an idea around to take a Shuttle stack, withot the orbiter, and bolt three or four Shuttle main engines to the bottom of the external tank. Put a payload fairing on the top of the stack, and you've got yourself one big ass rocket.
Don't know if you could make it so the SSMEs could be recovered and re-used, but that sure would be cool.
SSMEs are really good motors, but I think the Russians have some bigger ones. As far as weight of the engine itself goes, I'm just not sure.
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Damn, I'd have thought an F-16 taking off from an aircraft carrier would sound like this:
roooOOAAAAR! (engine spooling up)
WhooooOOOO (Steam catapult starting up)
SPRANG! (Nose gear snapping off airplane)
OOOOOOOSHBANG!(catapult finishing run with nose gear attached)
Scrapey-scrapey-ROOOAAaaaar KASPLASH! (airplane sliding off deck into water)
F-16's are for Air Force hosers who aren't good enough pilots to land on aircraft carriers. Naval Aviators fly F-18's.
Sorry, it's late, and the onomatopoeias struck me as funny. : )
Ummm...because he hasn't worked for Apple since before the dawn of time?
See, I just don't trust a computer to "see the way I do things, and adjust accordingly". If I find a feature in one place, I expect it to be in that one place when I look for it again. For instance, it drives me to ABSOLUTE DISTRACTION when MS Orifice apps re-arrange their menu system on the fly. Now, of course, on any computer I actually have to WORK on, I kill this "feature" post-haste. Problem is, these computers I work on at school are administered by a fuckwit, and they forget every time I log in that no thank you I DON'T want Clippy, and leave my menus the hell alone thank you very much.
I guess I just haven't seen a good example of an adaptive interface. One that I can redesign to suit my needs, sure, but that takes me thinking through where I want to put stuff.
I'd feel the same way about somebody reorganizing my desk or my bookshelf. Sure, it might not be perfectly organized, but I can put my hand on whatever I need really fast. On a PDA, even more than on a PC (which some other poor schlock might have to use after I've set it up for myself), I want the UI to be fast, and if anything tailorable by me.
In other words, the effort you make to build a good adaptive interface would annoy experts (like you and me) and not really help the greys (who wouldn't understand what's going on).
You're a whiny little bitch.
There, now you can hate it even more.
Sure, they listen...and go ahead and grant the patent anyway. Yay, free enterprise!
Well shit, I'll tell my lawyer that bratmobile said it was cool. I think that makes you liable when it's not.
That's a pretty wild claim, homey.
For real, have you used the Palm interface? The basic UI for launching apps and changing preferences is pretty bombproof. Obviously, the UI for individual apps varies according to how much the writer hates you, but the stuff that comes in the box is pretty darn good. (Now, I can rattle off a bunch of stuff that's just NOT very good, but on the whole...it's good, FAST, UI.)
You'll pry PalmOS out of my cold dead hands. It's cheap, the batteries last forever, and it does everything I need it to. YMMV.
The purpose of an icon is to be, well, iconic. The distillation of the unique features of the thing it's supposed to symbolize.
So, from that perspective, a big screen in a little box with some sqiggly texty-stuff on it is a great icon for a PDA. If you did as you seem to be suggesting, you'd have to try to get a scale reference to figure out if it was a PDA or a laptop.
Just a UI thing that I think too few people pay attention to. Go about your business. Nothing to see here. : )
Tell me you guys are at least as pissed as I am about this whole (north) Dakota thing. What a bunch of losers.
:)
Anyhow, yeah, cabling infrastructure is psychotically expensive. For a location like yours, satellite makes a hell of a lot of sense (even for internet access...as long as you don't play twitch games.
Interesting article! Thanks for the link.
Wish it had worked out.
Isn't it fine to feel justified? Would you like a cookie to go with your I-told-you-so?
/reality/ remains that that is a terrifically difficult (and expensive) problem to solve, whose solution was not well motivated by circumstances.
The NASA administrator said on day 1 that the Shuttle's nominal flight plan is the lowest-thermal-stress one. So, until I take you at your word, I'd like a citation from a reputable source.
I still do not believe that the engineers acted with malfeasance. Yes, they were in error. Yes, people died. No, I don't believe that it would have been possible for the engineers to have gotten more, useful, information.
Now, if you want to say "I told you so! I told you that Shuttle should be able to do a stem-to-stern inspection and repair while on orbit!" then that's fine. You can say that if you want to. The
Hindsight is 20-20. Of course all the problems are obvious now...they've already happened.
You move the axis of rotation of our planet, and I'll launch the satellite. Deal?
Yeah, I hear the North Pole is beautiful this time of year.
: )
Pink was, for a while, the code name for Apple/IBM's new OS initiative, that was the brainchild of a "company" (or shared department or partnership or whatever) called Taligent. Pink was started somewhere in the 1993 neighborhood, to be completed somewhere around 1995-96. It was theorized that it would include a PC software emulator layer.
Pink development segue-d into Copland, which was killed off when Apple bought NeXT and got back Mr. Jobs. The one thing that surprises me is that Jobs still tolerates IBM: Back in the day, Jobs' vision was to destroy IBM. I guess he's not as iconoclastic as a lot of people think. Sure wish he'd kept Newton around, though.
Yeah, once they figured out that power-on oversteer thing. That was sort of a bitch.
Huh? How do you figure?
Call me stupid, but if I buy a computer with a DVD drive in it, I expect to be able to watch DVDs in it. Hell, I've seen P3-400's play DVDs flawlessly (with hardware decoders, yes), but that's far from state of the art.
I'm about as big an Apple fan as you're likely to find, but your justification is just bullshit.
I pick...MARS!
: )
As long as the Republicans and Democrats control who gets on the nationwide ballots, no, there de facto only two parties in America.
I sure would like to change that, but guess what? In order to do that, you'd have to pass legislation through a Congress controlled lock, stock, and barrel by the two party system.
Third parties will always be the exception, and will never command substantial political power.
There is also a huge difference between a desktop system (in a minitower) and one of these all-in-one integrated jobs. I'll bet you a shiny quarter that the device reviewed uses either a laptop motherboard, or something quite similar.
So the grandparent's post may well be topical.
Had it been the astronaut's decision, certainly not. However (in this very contrived situation that we do not know to have existed), NASA administrators would have had to risk not only the lives of nine crews, but also two shuttles and the future of manned spaceflight.
It's not as simple as you make it out to be.
Your idea of "asking questions" looks a lot like blamestorming to me.
Is that good science and management?
I'd think that the credit reporting bureaus are a bunch of incompetent idiots who ought to look into one of those new fangled 'relational databases'.
Oh wait...I DO think that...except for the last part.
I can't believe I spelled "desperate" that way. Shoot me.
There's been an idea around to take a Shuttle stack, withot the orbiter, and bolt three or four Shuttle main engines to the bottom of the external tank. Put a payload fairing on the top of the stack, and you've got yourself one big ass rocket.
Don't know if you could make it so the SSMEs could be recovered and re-used, but that sure would be cool.
SSMEs are really good motors, but I think the Russians have some bigger ones. As far as weight of the engine itself goes, I'm just not sure.
See, that's the thing. According to all the data they had, or could have had, the situation was not desparate.
You don't risk your life to save your life if you don't think your life is in danger.