That's the problem. Going in a physical environment to somewhere is slow and is no different from modern GUIs. GUIs have taught people to think of doing a simple task as an obscure series of actions. "Click X, drag to Y, release, click Z... ". That's damn slow! A 3D UI that would require "going" on a imitated physical environment would be no different. I've stated in my previous posting how 3D boxes and all are nothing but an extension of the same old braindamaged paradigm (on which the modern GUI is based; a mess of papers on table) of imitating real-word objects on computer screen. Command line or similar abstract UIs, on the other hand, make people think of and remember objects (files) and commands with their names instead of the means to get to it. That's much faster. We, people, tend to give places and everything names. Or would you rather remember what roads to take to get to every anonymous city/place you know? I don't think so.
It all depends on how you think about it. I could, for example, think of the physical environment as a tree totally omitting spatial visualization:...->earth->...->buildings->apartments->rooms->fur niture->shelves->books. Or...->table->column->row->stack. Hey, we have a traditional file system!
Here's a crude analogy between real world and a window manager, Ion:
table/piece of furniture --- workspace
stack of items/shelf --- frame
item on stack/shelf --- tab - client window pair
That's three dimensions, organized! And if one had multiple screens...
> Aside from the text rendering problems, likening unordered, unfamiliar electronic bits to objects we deal with every day, like boxes and pillars, is foolish.
I would like to add that imitating that unordered paperpile on table with a computer GUI is quite as foolish and even harder to manage than the papers. Pillars, boxes and all are nothing but an extension of that same old braindamaged paradigm of imitating real-world objects in computer UI. It'll never be efficient and instead have the inefficiencies and mess of both real world and computer input methods.
Having to physically, without response, move things is one of the major problems of 3d interfaces. It is wearing. With keyboard I can let my hands rest on the table while typing with my fingers. The fingers are much lighter to raise than hands. Why do we write on A4-sized paper on table instead of some huge paper in vertical position? If I have to use the mouse (I wish I didn't have to), I have to move my hand. Repeating this monotonous, responseless movement for a while is tiresome. 3D interfaces would be even worse in this respect. So how to create a "light" responsive input method? I certainly wouldn't want to use a special suit and I don't think it'd be light.
Also, I wouldn't want to wear special goggles to use the UI. They make contact with the physical world too difficult. I don't stare at the computer screen all the time, as one might think and I don't want to have "computer/goggle sessions" alike using modem to take an "internet session" vs. real 24h network connection. It is just too complicated.
This goggle+suit system might work for FSP games and such. I don't care about them. For any other use it isn't practical. An air-projected 3d image would, on the other hand, be ideal for visualization, but we're still missing a "light" input method. It certainly isn't practical to use keyboard (or the rodent) for such. One could say voice recognizition, but I don't agree. Voicerec is the way to go for embedded tasks and remotely controlling devices at home, but it is not what I would want to use when doing real work on a workstation. The kind of voicerec that would be usefull to more than simple commands and dictation could require an AI that can practically do everything you can. Else it'd be like instructing a moron. We all hate helldesking via phone.
When people want something and they're accustomed to getting it,
the system should adapt to the new situation. Some corporation's
stinking profits should not matter there. Take Mathworld, for example.
A lot of people miss that site, and it was for the benefit of research
and thus mankind.
Or take mp3's. It is much easier to download them than perhaps travel
a long distance to the record store (although I prefer CD's for the
quality) and we already have a huge number of people who are accustomed
to getting their music that way. Of course, I realize, the artists need
compensation or soon we will not have any new music. Some people, like
I, would certainly use a system like www.fairtunes.com it it was well
established and usable worldwide. However, not everyone is as honest.
(I even suppose that non-mainstream artists would get proportionally
better compensated that way than mainstream).
One solution, which would eliminate Giant Evil Record Companies(tm)
is a government art/immaterial work fund (and people would pay by taxes). But it has
problems, like whom to support and by how much.
Price is, after all, an artificial concept.
For material, some kind of "price" is however necessary, because there
are limits on how much can be produced (natural resources, manufacturing
process) and if there wasn't price, we'd soon be fighting over the
last item of Product X or Food Y.
For immaterial, however, such constrains do not exist, except in the
form of media on which it is stored. (Don't take this like I wouldn't
appraciate immaterial works. On the contrary, infact.)
In the past, one had to buy the media with the immaterial work, so it
was practical to pay for the work with the media. With stuff moving to
networks and all, such is not the case anymore.
The system must change, and a new system devised for compensation
for authors of immaterial work, but big corporations are holding
on to the past.
But many student apartments do have a fast network connection: 10Mbps ethernet, some even 100Mbps (and some unfortunate only 512kbps) with FUNET (Finnish University and Research Network) in the process upgrading their backbone from 155Mbps to 2Gbps or so. At my university, there's been discussion about blocking napster because "it is taking all the bandwidth" and the student housing organization is quite unwilling to pay for it.
As for MP3's, only distributing illegal copies is illegal, not owning even if you don't have the CDs. The same does not apply to software. IANAL, though.
Polygons are ugly. I hate today's 3D and they have to put it everywhere just because it is 3D and therefore cool. Many old hand-drawn games (that don't need a 3D environment) used to be pretty, now similar games are filled with ugly boxes that try to mimick people and all. (Yes, I'm talking about adventure, a genre which seems almost dead too).
If realistic look is what is wanted, I think we should go for real-time raytracing with geometric surfaces, bezier patches, real lighting and all, not continuing with approximating everything with polygons.
Yet another lame hit-your-head-in-the-wall -with-javascript-or-use-the-source page. Why is it so damn hard to support all browsers and not use javascript? Although I am against patents, I almost hope javascript was patented and huge fees charged for its use..
3d-card? It is a laptop, and my other system doesn't have a 3d card either. I don't like modern 3d games. They're damn ugly and not like nethack either. Ah, good old Lucas Arts' adventures..
(Descent was great, though.)
Since when has Celeron or Duron been low-end? (Among the x86, among all computers all x86 are low-end). My 486 is a low-end x86 and I still consider my ppro a middle-end machine - it is adequate for most tasks if I don't use latest bloatzillas and all.
I'm truly sad to see this go. I've lately been using it almost daily for studying and all. Of course I could buy some huge book, but for reference material with relatively short descriptions hyperlinked, searchable text is so much better suited than paper. For textbooks paper is still much better (because computer screen is harder to read). Although I preferred the simple pre-wolfram, non-new media infested, layout.
Infact, right after the book was first published, before wolfram started hosting the mathematics part of treasure troves, there only were a few random letters browsable daily. So, the contract may have taken some of the rights. Later having found mathworld at wolfram again, I thought they had bought the rights from CRC. But I don't know..
Nevertheless, I got this (stupid?) idea of a petition to save mathworld, if someone had the time and will to put such up. It probably wouldn't help, but people could easily show their support for such a site.
Slashdot Mirror
> Go into X.
... ". That's damn slow! A 3D UI that would require "going" on a imitated physical environment would be no different. I've stated in my previous posting how 3D boxes and all are nothing but an extension of the same old braindamaged paradigm (on which the modern GUI is based; a mess of papers on table) of imitating real-word objects on computer screen. Command line or similar abstract UIs, on the other hand, make people think of and remember objects (files) and commands with their names instead of the means to get to it. That's much faster. We, people, tend to give places and everything names. Or would you rather remember what roads to take to get to every anonymous city/place you know? I don't think so.
That's the problem. Going in a physical environment to somewhere is slow and is no different from modern GUIs. GUIs have taught people to think of doing a simple task as an obscure series of actions. "Click X, drag to Y, release, click Z
It all depends on how you think about it. I could, for example, think of the physical environment as a tree totally omitting spatial visualization: ...->earth->...->buildings->apartments->rooms->fur niture->shelves->books. Or ...->table->column->row->stack. Hey, we have a traditional file system!
Here's a crude analogy between real world and a window manager, Ion:
table/piece of furniture --- workspace
stack of items/shelf --- frame
item on stack/shelf --- tab - client window pair
That's three dimensions, organized! And if one had multiple screens...
> Aside from the text rendering problems, likening unordered, unfamiliar electronic bits to objects we deal with every day, like boxes and pillars, is foolish.
I would like to add that imitating that unordered paperpile on table with a computer GUI is quite as foolish and even harder to manage than the papers. Pillars, boxes and all are nothing but an extension of that same old braindamaged paradigm of imitating real-world objects in computer UI. It'll never be efficient and instead have the inefficiencies and mess of both real world and computer input methods.
Having to physically, without response, move things is one of the major problems of 3d interfaces. It is wearing. With keyboard I can let my hands rest on the table while typing with my fingers. The fingers are much lighter to raise than hands. Why do we write on A4-sized paper on table instead of some huge paper in vertical position? If I have to use the mouse (I wish I didn't have to), I have to move my hand. Repeating this monotonous, responseless movement for a while is tiresome. 3D interfaces would be even worse in this respect. So how to create a "light" responsive input method? I certainly wouldn't want to use a special suit and I don't think it'd be light.
Also, I wouldn't want to wear special goggles to use the UI. They make contact with the physical world too difficult. I don't stare at the computer screen all the time, as one might think and I don't want to have "computer/goggle sessions" alike using modem to take an "internet session" vs. real 24h network connection. It is just too complicated.
This goggle+suit system might work for FSP games and such. I don't care about them. For any other use it isn't practical. An air-projected 3d image would, on the other hand, be ideal for visualization, but we're still missing a "light" input method. It certainly isn't practical to use keyboard (or the rodent) for such. One could say voice recognizition, but I don't agree. Voicerec is the way to go for embedded tasks and remotely controlling devices at home, but it is not what I would want to use when doing real work on a workstation. The kind of voicerec that would be usefull to more than simple commands and dictation could require an AI that can practically do everything you can. Else it'd be like instructing a moron. We all hate helldesking via phone.
Or take mp3's. It is much easier to download them than perhaps travel a long distance to the record store (although I prefer CD's for the quality) and we already have a huge number of people who are accustomed to getting their music that way. Of course, I realize, the artists need compensation or soon we will not have any new music. Some people, like I, would certainly use a system like www.fairtunes.com it it was well established and usable worldwide. However, not everyone is as honest. (I even suppose that non-mainstream artists would get proportionally better compensated that way than mainstream). One solution, which would eliminate Giant Evil Record Companies(tm) is a government art/immaterial work fund (and people would pay by taxes). But it has problems, like whom to support and by how much.
Price is, after all, an artificial concept. For material, some kind of "price" is however necessary, because there are limits on how much can be produced (natural resources, manufacturing process) and if there wasn't price, we'd soon be fighting over the last item of Product X or Food Y. For immaterial, however, such constrains do not exist, except in the form of media on which it is stored. (Don't take this like I wouldn't appraciate immaterial works. On the contrary, infact.) In the past, one had to buy the media with the immaterial work, so it was practical to pay for the work with the media. With stuff moving to networks and all, such is not the case anymore.
The system must change, and a new system devised for compensation for authors of immaterial work, but big corporations are holding on to the past.
But many student apartments do have a fast network connection: 10Mbps ethernet, some even 100Mbps (and some unfortunate only 512kbps) with FUNET (Finnish University and Research Network) in the process upgrading their backbone from 155Mbps to 2Gbps or so. At my university, there's been discussion about blocking napster because "it is taking all the bandwidth" and the student housing organization is quite unwilling to pay for it.
As for MP3's, only distributing illegal copies is illegal, not owning even if you don't have the CDs. The same does not apply to software. IANAL, though.
Polygons are ugly. I hate today's 3D and they have to put it everywhere just because it is 3D and therefore cool. Many old hand-drawn games (that don't need a 3D environment) used to be pretty, now similar games are filled with ugly boxes that try to mimick people and all. (Yes, I'm talking about adventure, a genre which seems almost dead too).
If realistic look is what is wanted, I think we should go for real-time raytracing with geometric surfaces, bezier patches, real lighting and all, not continuing with approximating everything with polygons.
Yet another lame hit-your-head-in-the-wall -with-javascript-or-use-the-source page. Why is it so damn hard to support all browsers and not use javascript? Although I am against patents, I almost hope javascript was patented and huge fees charged for its use..
3d-card? It is a laptop, and my other system doesn't have a 3d card either. I don't like modern 3d games. They're damn ugly and not like nethack either. Ah, good old Lucas Arts' adventures..
(Descent was great, though.)
Since when has Celeron or Duron been low-end? (Among the x86, among all computers all x86 are low-end). My 486 is a low-end x86 and I still consider my ppro a middle-end machine - it is adequate for most tasks if I don't use latest bloatzillas and all.
I'm truly sad to see this go. I've lately been using it almost daily for studying and all. Of course I could buy some huge book, but for reference material with relatively short descriptions hyperlinked, searchable text is so much better suited than paper. For textbooks paper is still much better (because computer screen is harder to read). Although I preferred the simple pre-wolfram, non-new media infested, layout.
Infact, right after the book was first published, before wolfram started hosting the mathematics part of treasure troves, there only were a few random letters browsable daily. So, the contract may have taken some of the rights. Later having found mathworld at wolfram again, I thought they had bought the rights from CRC. But I don't know..
Nevertheless, I got this (stupid?) idea of a petition to save mathworld, if someone had the time and will to put such up. It probably wouldn't help, but people could easily show their support for such a site.