The Interface Hall of Shame brought back some unhappy flashbacks, reminding me what a POS Notes really is.
Aside from the multitude of interface issues, a Notes client installation ties itself to the user and PC. In other words, you can only check your email from your own PC, you can't log on to another machine, because it won't have your profile on its hard disk. Sheesh! -----------------
I see a lot over people talking about deleting the damn things, but doesn't anyone filter them?
I know Outlook is a virus-spreading hellspawn of a program, but it does have a really powerful filtering capability. You can filter by sender, by keywords in the subject line, by keywords in the body, and set up a pile of rules to deal with offending messages.
I may still get spam, but I never see it.
What other email programs out there can do this? I love to dump Outlook and use something else, but this feature keeps me using it. -----------------
If there's anyone out there who has had experience programming game consoles correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think consoles have an OS to speak of, just a bunch of low level APIs. Each game cartridge or CD is its own self-contained OS, the console is bootloader and interface controller.
So, yeah, there's custom hardware, for the sound and video, but I don't think there's any custom software, other than hooks into the harware. -----------------
Probably the review didn't give you an adequate feeling of the writing style. Trust me, "The Business" is just as surreal, in its own way, as "The Bridge".
Actually, all of his mainstream fiction has an air of the surreal to it. Check out the beginning of "The Crow Road", were the main character's grandmother explodes in the crematorium. -----------------
I could give you the entire Banks' 'Canon' since I have them all, but it's easier to look on amazon.co.uk.
The reason this is being reviewed now is because it just got published in the US. There's a lag time of about 18 months between publication of a Banks book inthe UK and the US, and many haven't been published at all.
I also find that many people who like his SF don't like his 'mainstream' fiction, and vice versa, which may explain why he uses the 'M'. -----------------
You should read Stephen Baxter's "Voyage", an alternate history novel about an Apollo-style Mars mission set in the seventies. Baxter consulted with a lot of NASA types while he was writing the book, so the tech is pretty good. The lander in particular is a neat hack.
He also rather neatly tackles the pros and cons of the 'go for broke' approach, rather than a phased program. -----------------
Oh, sure. Then we'll start storing our nuclear waste there, giant electromagnetic fields will be generated, and we all know what the outcome of that will be.
Oh, wait, that already happened two years ago. Nevermind. -----------------
And those of us who remember Bakshi's aborted attempt in the late seventies have been waiting twenty years for this. I think they know they can't screw it up again. So far, it looks promising. -----------------
Instead of taking electrocardiographs, doctors place heart patients in front of a fluoroscopic screen, turn on the X-rays and then, with the aid of a photoelectric cell,
examine every section of the heart.
I think this is minus. I thought they knew over-exposure to X-Rays was dangerous back then. If you want to be charitable, you could say he was predicting CAT scans and NMR, but I think it's a stretch. And my Dad had an ECG last week. -----------------
Trumpet Winsock was shareware, where are they now?
What happened to Quarterdeck?
What happened to Stac?
Microsoft drove them all out of business. There were some nice features in QEMM and Stacker, and the like, that Microsoft doesn't have to provide, because there's no competition. That's what scares me the stifling of innovation. -----------------
There are no "secret" APIs hidden in Win32 that somehow give Microsoft a huge edge
Oh no? Then why the hell did Jeff Richter write a book called "Undocumented Windows Secrets" that was over 500 pages long?
And why did Microsoft ban him from MS developers' conferences after the book was published?
And yes, you can get the SDK, if you pay for it!And don't get me started on the quality of the API. To maintain compatibility with Win16 and add 32 bit addressing and threading, the thing has become a complete morass. -----------------
folder action converts.doc to RTF,.XLS to tab seperated.
They'll lose all macros and lose formatting and layout in Excel that way. Maybe not the best approach. -----------------
Berman may not be the problem as much as Brandon Braga. He's screwed up more scripts than I can count. He wrote the finale to ST:TNG, which has a massive plot hole in it (which I leave as an exercise to the readers) and just to prove he can't write in any genre, he was responsible for Mission: Impossible II.
You should have watched "Babylon 5:Crusade", all thirteen episodes of it. Big, mean starship with a main gun that smashed small planets, a crew that didn't get along, the captain having an affair with the commander of B5, space battles that looked like someone throught of the physics involved, all-in-all a great show. Too bad the network hacks killed it so quickly. -----------------
You have to see the "pre-Melinda" Outland strip that Breathed did about Bill picking up chicks. Brilliant and vicious! ("Wanna go out with me? I'll buy you Norway? Okay, but no tongue.") -----------------
Forget about Star Trek and its misbegotten progeny. The best SF show on the air right now is "Farscape". Great stories, great CGI, alien sex, the works. Do yourself a favour, get SciFi channel, and watch it.
Okay, so Stargate SG-1 comes in a distant second. -----------------
Counterpoint: notice that the foundation didn't exist before Bill got married. I seriously wonder how much of "The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation" is Bill, and how much is Melinda. I don't remember hearing anything about his philanthropy before the wedding. -----------------
Sorry, I guess I wasn't clear enough. My point was that quantum is so complex and counter-intuitive that even Einstein didn't get it.
I don't think religon enters into it. My understanding has always been that Albie was making an analogy, and that he didn't believe that the universe was inherently 'unknowable'.
No arguments with the rest of your comments. I have no doubt that he was weird, it seems the smarter you are, the wierder you are. Newton was a fruitcake, and Stephen Hawking is known to be a real pain at times (which must take a bit of effort). -----------------
No, it makes a certain amount of sense, but you have to start with the understanding that quantum mechanics is very counter-intuitive. I have an undergrad degree in physics and quantum still makes my head hurt.
Hell, even Einstein didn't buy it. He said, "God does not play dice with the universe."
I can't even point you to a good introductory source, off-hand. All my textbooks were very dry reading. -----------------
Thanks, now I have this even more surreal Blue Man Group thing stuck in my head. (They keep popping in and out of existence not in time to the beat.) -----------------
Slashdot Mirror
Aside from the multitude of interface issues, a Notes client installation ties itself to the user and PC. In other words, you can only check your email from your own PC, you can't log on to another machine, because it won't have your profile on its hard disk. Sheesh!
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Um, the Germans invented beer. (Or was it the Austrians?)
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I know Outlook is a virus-spreading hellspawn of a program, but it does have a really powerful filtering capability. You can filter by sender, by keywords in the subject line, by keywords in the body, and set up a pile of rules to deal with offending messages.
I may still get spam, but I never see it.
What other email programs out there can do this?
I love to dump Outlook and use something else, but this feature keeps me using it.
-----------------
The world of 'Rollerball' gets closer every day.
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When Microsoft did their test, they used their "issues' (i.e. bugs) database. But only a subset.
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So, yeah, there's custom hardware, for the sound and video, but I don't think there's any custom software, other than hooks into the harware.
-----------------
Actually, all of his mainstream fiction has an air of the surreal to it. Check out the beginning of "The Crow Road", were the main character's grandmother explodes in the crematorium.
-----------------
The reason this is being reviewed now is because it just got published in the US. There's a lag time of about 18 months between publication of a Banks book inthe UK and the US, and many haven't been published at all.
I also find that many people who like his SF don't like his 'mainstream' fiction, and vice versa, which may explain why he uses the 'M'.
-----------------
He also rather neatly tackles the pros and cons of the 'go for broke' approach, rather than a phased program.
-----------------
Oh, wait, that already happened two years ago. Nevermind.
-----------------
And those of us who remember Bakshi's aborted attempt in the late seventies have been waiting twenty years for this. I think they know they can't screw it up again. So far, it looks promising.
-----------------
I think this is minus. I thought they knew over-exposure to X-Rays was dangerous back then. If you want to be charitable, you could say he was predicting CAT scans and NMR, but I think it's a stretch. And my Dad had an ECG last week.
-----------------
Trumpet Winsock was shareware, where are they now?
What happened to Quarterdeck?
What happened to Stac?
Microsoft drove them all out of business. There were some nice features in QEMM and Stacker, and the like, that Microsoft doesn't have to provide, because there's no competition. That's what scares me the stifling of innovation.
-----------------
Oh no? Then why the hell did Jeff Richter write a book called "Undocumented Windows Secrets" that was over 500 pages long?
And why did Microsoft ban him from MS developers' conferences after the book was published? And yes, you can get the SDK, if you pay for it!And don't get me started on the quality of the API. To maintain compatibility with Win16 and add 32 bit addressing and threading, the thing has become a complete morass.
-----------------
The GUI interface is almost impenetrable (based on previous experience with SourceSafe and PVCS), so I wouldn't recommend it for non-techies.
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folder action converts .doc to RTF, .XLS to tab seperated.
They'll lose all macros and lose formatting and layout in Excel that way. Maybe not the best approach.
-----------------
Stop him before he types again!
-----------------
You should have watched "Babylon 5:Crusade", all thirteen episodes of it. Big, mean starship with a main gun that smashed small planets, a crew that didn't get along, the captain having an affair with the commander of B5, space battles that looked like someone throught of the physics involved, all-in-all a great show. Too bad the network hacks killed it so quickly.
-----------------
You have to see the "pre-Melinda" Outland strip that Breathed did about Bill picking up chicks. Brilliant and vicious! ("Wanna go out with me? I'll buy you Norway? Okay, but no tongue.")
-----------------
Okay, so Stargate SG-1 comes in a distant second.
-----------------
Counterpoint: notice that the foundation didn't exist before Bill got married. I seriously wonder how much of "The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation" is Bill, and how much is Melinda. I don't remember hearing anything about his philanthropy before the wedding.
-----------------
I don't think religon enters into it. My understanding has always been that Albie was making an analogy, and that he didn't believe that the universe was inherently 'unknowable'.
No arguments with the rest of your comments. I have no doubt that he was weird, it seems the smarter you are, the wierder you are. Newton was a fruitcake, and Stephen Hawking is known to be a real pain at times (which must take a bit of effort).
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Actually, the title is: Red Dust in case any feels confused.
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Hell, even Einstein didn't buy it. He said, "God does not play dice with the universe."
I can't even point you to a good introductory source, off-hand. All my textbooks were very dry reading.
-----------------
Thanks, now I have this even more surreal Blue Man Group thing stuck in my head. (They keep popping in and out of existence not in time to the beat.)
-----------------