Stevie Nicks didn't become famous because of her looks or boyfriend. Really. Everyone loves women with frog-like voices who sing about witchcraft.
Now, Sinatra, not my cup of tea, but the man had huge talent and could command an audience for over 50 years. Besides, if you talk bad about the Chairman, you might wake up in the East River.
They fired all their HCI experts in order to hire 800 art students to create new and increasingly ugly WMP skins.
Next question?
What's worse is the type of dialog I see often:
You need to make a choice of whether or not you want to do this thing. Here is an overly wordly description of what we are trying to comminicate to you. We are asking you a binary question, but the choices are not "Yes" or "No". A good example is, "Do you want to empty the clipboard?" Press OK to leave the clipboard intact or "Cancel" to delete its contents.
...followed by "OK" and "Cancel" buttons. Of course, this means you have to read the damn thing every time since there is no mnemonic hint to what you are being asked.
Here's a clue that would take, oh, about, 2 minutes of the developer's time. Make the buttons say something actually relevant like "Delete" and "Leave".
But no, that would require thinking about usability, and that is so-o-o-o-o early 90's.
It seems to me about 90% of the Federal government is derived from stretching the Interstate Commerce Clause so far past logic that it comes out the other side.
Really, I don't even know why they pretend to justify their power grabs any more.
Corporations may be persons, but they get a hell of lot of more for their "votes" than I do.
You're suggesting the government spend money on something domestically that will actually give us something in return?!
I'd bet all of NASA's budget is smaller than the amount we give to farmers _not_ to grow crops. Heck, for the cost of the Big Dig we could probably have built a freakin' Death Star.
As long as I can remember consumer organisations have warned against pyramid schemes.
Too bad we can't get them to admit Social Security is a pyramid scheme.
Don't hate spyware. See it as a sign so that you know the person you are dealing with is slightly denser then your cat.
Yes, this will win you lots of friends. Step out of the computer lab into that big room with blue ceiling some time. If you don't start acknowledging it exists and is a good place to be, no one will like you and you'll be very lonely. I know people smarter than both you and I who would greatly benefit from this information.
I imagine you are one of those people who blames the victims whenever a crime occurs because by not taking enough precautions, they somehow deserve it.
This is exactly the kind of education that people need to become knowledgeable enough to stay safe. It's fairly simple and short and is exactly the right kind of information for people like you and me to share with our non-technical friends and relatives. The person who submitted the article knows the/. audience will utilize this information as a handy list to send (or explain) to people who need their help. I don't know about you, but I end up helping a lot of people who have better things to do than spend their lives fiddling with some stupid glowing box (like I do).
The real boneheads are the software companies that market their tools as usable by anyone, even though the uneducated will almost certainly cause themselves and others harm.
No, it just shows that most people are not familiar with very large numbers and the smallest units of SI. How many times during the day do you encounter a "nanogram"? It sounds weird even to me, and I'm a science junkie.
Why is that a flaw? The strength of the metric system is that someone who didn't know about "zepto-" can now apply it to meters, liters and any other SI unit.
What I want to know is, is there any truth to the rumor that they are considering "groucho-" for the next unit down? I made a joke about that once and someone responded that that was actually being considered.
After 6 years or so of the same lame crap I think we have a right to whine. If it were clever, I wouldn't complain. If it were funny, I wouldn't complain. If it involved more than two neurons worth of creativity I wouldn't complain. It's just sad really. A good April Fool's joke looks real at first, until you read it. A good April Fool's joke taker you by surprise. And finally, a good April Fool's joke isn't as dumb as a box of hammers.
Besides, don't tell us not to whine, it's the official pastime of/.
I'm glad I wasn't aware of this Special when I was 12 because it would been really embarrassing to be expecting something really cool (after all the movie was life-alteringly cool for someone my age) and having my parents wonder what kind of childish crap this Star Wars thing was after seeing Itchy and Scratchy and Poochy and Bea Arthur. Actually, my Dad knew the movie was cool, he went with me.
I have this morbid fascination with relentlessly bad kitsch, perhaps from a dozen years of watching MST3K, or maybe it's generic in those of us who grew up in the 70's, and I downloaded (yes, MPAA, come and get me) the SWHS or whatever it was called, and I have to say, even though parts of it were so bad I got cancer and died twice, it wasn't all bad.
As probably noted elsewhere, the Boba Fett cartoon was actually pretty cool, and drawn in a really neat style that is not unlike Genndy Tartakovsky's (however you spell it) work. I was actually impressed at the concept of long scenes acted out with no English dialog (in a suburban American kitchen... it was a cool idea, but not well executed).
The musical numbers were like some kind of nightmare after eating $20 of food at Taco Bell, and after about the first half you realize it's actually more dull than bad (and it's really bad). But still it's a fascinating example of the fact that despite his brilliance in many respects George Lucas could (and still can) be a total hack.
Rape, pillage, murder all you want. What we NEED is a vaccine to prevent lame humor on/. on April 1st. This is weak even compared to past years.
It seems like every year they turn over editorial duties to 6-year-olds. Next thing we'll see dupes of April Fool's pieces.
And, yes, I am complaining and being mean, if the editors don't like it, then they should quit their jobs. In the words of Stu Hamm: If you're scared, stay home!
95 per cent of information technology groups are not delivering some number of projects on time or to the full satisfaction of the business executive.
While the "late" part of the 95% of projects is a sizable portion, I bet the "full satisfacion" part is as bad or worse.
What executive even really knows what he wants well enough to recognize it when he sees it. Sometimes, the hardest part of a job is getting the boss at the top to understand the requirements well enough to understand what should be delivered. As a one time consultant, I know that many clients really don't know what they want, but they certainly do know what they don't want. Often, half the battle is convincing them your solution is what they want (assuming it is a good solution) and maintaining their expectations within the realm of the reasonably possible. ("What do you mean you can't port this VB enterprise system to Linux over the weekend?")
Meeting the specs (including the schedule) is hard enough, but the satisfaction of the higher ups is often completely unrelated this.
I help out down at the church with their computers (3 of which run Windows 98, which I've grown to hate even more than when we had it on the kids' computer so they could run their games).
Anyhow, Father got a new computer that came with XP and after setting it up and restoring his data and e-mail from the old machine, I was trying to describe the Luna theme and why he might want me to turn it off for him, but he didn't quite understand what I meant. He's a completely non-technical person and hadn't actually used the new machine yet and didn't realize what I was talking about.
If I had had this phrase I think I would have been more successful in communicating.
There's two "classics", the real classic, which is WMP 6.4 and the new "classic" which is one of those stupid rounded brushed metal skins that wastes screen real estate.
The real classic was not on my OEM Windows XP laptop and I couldn't find it on a non OEM installation of WMP 10.
Regardless, I'm using Media Player Classic now, where usability is still important.
Wait. I think Visual Studio 6 was actually pretty good*. At least once you got used to it. Excel always seemed easy to use. Other than that I guess I stand corrected.
* But I could write a book on bad UI on just the installer for VS.NET. I haven't used the app itself much, but the way it seemed to insist on sorting files in reverse order was absurd.
I guess I was just impressed by the fact that they didn't feel the need to assault me with the boring yet garish color combinations of Luna, or whatever it's called.
But the whole evolution of Microsoft's UI in the last 10 years has centered around stealing screen real estate for useless chrome, unnecessary widgets or information of no utility.
Look at WMP. WMP 6.4, the pinnacle of usability and compact design (and yes, I now use Media Player Classic), devoted all but a thin border, compact progress bar, and menu bar to content. WMP 10, on the other hand uses up as much space with stupid buttons, goofy widgets of questionable use, some Photoshop flunkie's shiny excretions and other useless noise, as the actual content itself (for videos obviously). It's huge, ugly, hard to use, and the Classic skin seems to have been retired, which was the only one I found to be useful and not butt-ugly or goofy-looking, as opposed to some art-school dropout's idle doodlings...
You can't expect them to reverse this long trend by devoting more screen space to content! It's all about the application and Windows is becoming like pop music stars who are popular not for their music or talent, but for their clothes, looks or bad behavior. Microsoft, for whom I used to have a fair amount of respect as a UI designer, has fallen into the same trap that has infected every other major software developer since 16-bit color became the norm and the Web helped set back UI standards 15 years... they are more interested in looking "pretty" than being more functional.
I'll give them one thing, the default Windows XP theme was the ugliest Windows UI since Windows 2.1 (which suffered primarily because it was stuck in 16 colors with exactly 1 palette), but Aero actually looks half-decent, if, typically for MS, cluttered and overly busy. At least it's not ugly. A bit rococo perhaps, but not ugly.
Still, I imagine that, should I ever find myself using Longhorn, the first thing I'll do is turn it off and go back to the Windows 2000 style, which combined the best functionality with minimal but attractive artistic improvements. But at least Aero doesn't look like a busybox for holding the attention of babies or MS executives.
Of course, I can't imagine any reason to ever upgrade from Windows 2000, or XP for my laptops that came with it. What could MS possibly offer in Longhorn that an average user would ever want or need? Mostly more protection from all the bad design decisions MS has made over the last 20 years, I suppose. Also, I like the fact that a gigabyte of RAM is still considered a lot. I imagine that will be the minimal reasonable requirement to do any real work with Longhorn, just like 128MB was for Windows 4.0, 256MB was for Windows 2000* and 512MB is for XP.
Hell, I still use Visual C++ 6. It lets me get the work done that I need to get done efficiently and effectively without bloating me up another half-dozen byzantine technologies getting in the way of me doing work (although I am impressed by what I've read about the compiler in the 2003 version). Actually, I'd probably upgrade, but none of my clients want to. Watcha gonna do? If it works, don't break it.
* I actually ran 2000 with 64MB on a laptop for some months back around 2000. It actually wasn't too bad as long as I didn't load more than one or two programs, but for any serious work, it wouldn't have been usable.
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They did... just to "prove" they're not a monopoly.
Stevie Nicks didn't become famous because of her looks or boyfriend. Really. Everyone loves women with frog-like voices who sing about witchcraft.
Now, Sinatra, not my cup of tea, but the man had huge talent and could command an audience for over 50 years. Besides, if you talk bad about the Chairman, you might wake up in the East River.
They fired all their HCI experts in order to hire 800 art students to create new and increasingly ugly WMP skins.
Next question?
What's worse is the type of dialog I see often:
Here's a clue that would take, oh, about, 2 minutes of the developer's time. Make the buttons say something actually relevant like "Delete" and "Leave".
But no, that would require thinking about usability, and that is so-o-o-o-o early 90's.
Is crapulous the opposite of cromulent?
IINAL - "I is not a lawyer"? ;-)
It seems to me about 90% of the Federal government is derived from stretching the Interstate Commerce Clause so far past logic that it comes out the other side.
Really, I don't even know why they pretend to justify their power grabs any more.
Corporations may be persons, but they get a hell of lot of more for their "votes" than I do.
Shut up and drink your Victory Gin.
I want to say "Find me something good to watch." but since I can't do that often myself, I don't think the smart TV will be able to.
OK, I called them and told them I am being robbed. Now what?
When do I do step 3?
Why are there sirens?
What?!
You're suggesting the government spend money on something domestically that will actually give us something in return?!
I'd bet all of NASA's budget is smaller than the amount we give to farmers _not_ to grow crops. Heck, for the cost of the Big Dig we could probably have built a freakin' Death Star.
As long as I can remember consumer organisations have warned against pyramid schemes.
/. audience will utilize this information as a handy list to send (or explain) to people who need their help. I don't know about you, but I end up helping a lot of people who have better things to do than spend their lives fiddling with some stupid glowing box (like I do).
Too bad we can't get them to admit Social Security is a pyramid scheme.
Don't hate spyware. See it as a sign so that you know the person you are dealing with is slightly denser then your cat.
Yes, this will win you lots of friends. Step out of the computer lab into that big room with blue ceiling some time. If you don't start acknowledging it exists and is a good place to be, no one will like you and you'll be very lonely. I know people smarter than both you and I who would greatly benefit from this information.
I imagine you are one of those people who blames the victims whenever a crime occurs because by not taking enough precautions, they somehow deserve it.
This is exactly the kind of education that people need to become knowledgeable enough to stay safe. It's fairly simple and short and is exactly the right kind of information for people like you and me to share with our non-technical friends and relatives. The person who submitted the article knows the
The real boneheads are the software companies that market their tools as usable by anyone, even though the uneducated will almost certainly cause themselves and others harm.
I don't fight. I just make smart-ass comments and the karma just rolls in.
Yeah, that kind of witty rejoinder will get you no covalent bonding for at least a month.
None of the obviously made-up ones are funny, so I don't see your point.
No, it just shows that most people are not familiar with very large numbers and the smallest units of SI. How many times during the day do you encounter a "nanogram"? It sounds weird even to me, and I'm a science junkie.
Why is that a flaw? The strength of the metric system is that someone who didn't know about "zepto-" can now apply it to meters, liters and any other SI unit.
What I want to know is, is there any truth to the rumor that they are considering "groucho-" for the next unit down? I made a joke about that once and someone responded that that was actually being considered.
After 6 years or so of the same lame crap I think we have a right to whine. If it were clever, I wouldn't complain. If it were funny, I wouldn't complain. If it involved more than two neurons worth of creativity I wouldn't complain. It's just sad really. A good April Fool's joke looks real at first, until you read it. A good April Fool's joke taker you by surprise. And finally, a good April Fool's joke isn't as dumb as a box of hammers.
/.
Besides, don't tell us not to whine, it's the official pastime of
I'm glad I wasn't aware of this Special when I was 12 because it would been really embarrassing to be expecting something really cool (after all the movie was life-alteringly cool for someone my age) and having my parents wonder what kind of childish crap this Star Wars thing was after seeing Itchy and Scratchy and Poochy and Bea Arthur. Actually, my Dad knew the movie was cool, he went with me.
I have this morbid fascination with relentlessly bad kitsch, perhaps from a dozen years of watching MST3K, or maybe it's generic in those of us who grew up in the 70's, and I downloaded (yes, MPAA, come and get me) the SWHS or whatever it was called, and I have to say, even though parts of it were so bad I got cancer and died twice, it wasn't all bad.
As probably noted elsewhere, the Boba Fett cartoon was actually pretty cool, and drawn in a really neat style that is not unlike Genndy Tartakovsky's (however you spell it) work. I was actually impressed at the concept of long scenes acted out with no English dialog (in a suburban American kitchen... it was a cool idea, but not well executed).
The musical numbers were like some kind of nightmare after eating $20 of food at Taco Bell, and after about the first half you realize it's actually more dull than bad (and it's really bad). But still it's a fascinating example of the fact that despite his brilliance in many respects George Lucas could (and still can) be a total hack.
Rape, pillage, murder all you want. What we NEED is a vaccine to prevent lame humor on /. on April 1st. This is weak even compared to past years.
It seems like every year they turn over editorial duties to 6-year-olds. Next thing we'll see dupes of April Fool's pieces.
And, yes, I am complaining and being mean, if the editors don't like it, then they should quit their jobs. In the words of Stu Hamm: If you're scared, stay home!
You know, everyone else has gotten over the 2000 election.
95 per cent of information technology groups are not delivering some number of projects on time or to the full satisfaction of the business executive.
While the "late" part of the 95% of projects is a sizable portion, I bet the "full satisfacion" part is as bad or worse.
What executive even really knows what he wants well enough to recognize it when he sees it. Sometimes, the hardest part of a job is getting the boss at the top to understand the requirements well enough to understand what should be delivered. As a one time consultant, I know that many clients really don't know what they want, but they certainly do know what they don't want. Often, half the battle is convincing them your solution is what they want (assuming it is a good solution) and maintaining their expectations within the realm of the reasonably possible. ("What do you mean you can't port this VB enterprise system to Linux over the weekend?")
Meeting the specs (including the schedule) is hard enough, but the satisfaction of the higher ups is often completely unrelated this.
I help out down at the church with their computers (3 of which run Windows 98, which I've grown to hate even more than when we had it on the kids' computer so they could run their games).
Anyhow, Father got a new computer that came with XP and after setting it up and restoring his data and e-mail from the old machine, I was trying to describe the Luna theme and why he might want me to turn it off for him, but he didn't quite understand what I meant. He's a completely non-technical person and hadn't actually used the new machine yet and didn't realize what I was talking about.
If I had had this phrase I think I would have been more successful in communicating.
There's two "classics", the real classic, which is WMP 6.4 and the new "classic" which is one of those stupid rounded brushed metal skins that wastes screen real estate.
The real classic was not on my OEM Windows XP laptop and I couldn't find it on a non OEM installation of WMP 10.
Regardless, I'm using Media Player Classic now, where usability is still important.
IBM? The kings of user-hostile software?! No way!
Well, there was, um, Clippy? er, Bob?
Wait. I think Visual Studio 6 was actually pretty good*. At least once you got used to it. Excel always seemed easy to use. Other than that I guess I stand corrected.
* But I could write a book on bad UI on just the installer for VS.NET. I haven't used the app itself much, but the way it seemed to insist on sorting files in reverse order was absurd.
Install VMWare?
I guess I was just impressed by the fact that they didn't feel the need to assault me with the boring yet garish color combinations of Luna, or whatever it's called.
Didn't you know, Microsoft invented INVENTING?
Actually they acquired the patent rights from Al Gore.
But the whole evolution of Microsoft's UI in the last 10 years has centered around stealing screen real estate for useless chrome, unnecessary widgets or information of no utility.
Look at WMP. WMP 6.4, the pinnacle of usability and compact design (and yes, I now use Media Player Classic), devoted all but a thin border, compact progress bar, and menu bar to content. WMP 10, on the other hand uses up as much space with stupid buttons, goofy widgets of questionable use, some Photoshop flunkie's shiny excretions and other useless noise, as the actual content itself (for videos obviously). It's huge, ugly, hard to use, and the Classic skin seems to have been retired, which was the only one I found to be useful and not butt-ugly or goofy-looking, as opposed to some art-school dropout's idle doodlings...
You can't expect them to reverse this long trend by devoting more screen space to content! It's all about the application and Windows is becoming like pop music stars who are popular not for their music or talent, but for their clothes, looks or bad behavior. Microsoft, for whom I used to have a fair amount of respect as a UI designer, has fallen into the same trap that has infected every other major software developer since 16-bit color became the norm and the Web helped set back UI standards 15 years... they are more interested in looking "pretty" than being more functional.
I'll give them one thing, the default Windows XP theme was the ugliest Windows UI since Windows 2.1 (which suffered primarily because it was stuck in 16 colors with exactly 1 palette), but Aero actually looks half-decent, if, typically for MS, cluttered and overly busy. At least it's not ugly. A bit rococo perhaps, but not ugly.
Still, I imagine that, should I ever find myself using Longhorn, the first thing I'll do is turn it off and go back to the Windows 2000 style, which combined the best functionality with minimal but attractive artistic improvements. But at least Aero doesn't look like a busybox for holding the attention of babies or MS executives.
Of course, I can't imagine any reason to ever upgrade from Windows 2000, or XP for my laptops that came with it. What could MS possibly offer in Longhorn that an average user would ever want or need? Mostly more protection from all the bad design decisions MS has made over the last 20 years, I suppose. Also, I like the fact that a gigabyte of RAM is still considered a lot. I imagine that will be the minimal reasonable requirement to do any real work with Longhorn, just like 128MB was for Windows 4.0, 256MB was for Windows 2000* and 512MB is for XP.
Hell, I still use Visual C++ 6. It lets me get the work done that I need to get done efficiently and effectively without bloating me up another half-dozen byzantine technologies getting in the way of me doing work (although I am impressed by what I've read about the compiler in the 2003 version). Actually, I'd probably upgrade, but none of my clients want to. Watcha gonna do? If it works, don't break it.
* I actually ran 2000 with 64MB on a laptop for some months back around 2000. It actually wasn't too bad as long as I didn't load more than one or two programs, but for any serious work, it wouldn't have been usable.