As much as I'm deeply-not-outraged by AC, there is a distinction to be made: Everyone operates under what might be called 'moral myopia': things closer to them(either literally geographically closer, or socially/in-their-living-room-by-TV/etc.) affect them more, more distant things affect them less. This is just how humans are specced. Plus, if it didn't work that way, the utterly incomprehensible scale of continual human tragedy worldwide would probably reduce us to nonfuctional, catatonic shells.
Before humanity rose in power by the massive energy content of fossil fuels the world past the boundaries of your nation was practically unknown. You couldn't care about the people half way around the world because there was zero accessible information on them.
When the Milky Way and Andromeda "collide" no stars will collide. Star formation will begin a new due to the exchange of interstellar gases and the two galaxies will merge..
I disagree. While the spaces between the stars are enormous making star collisions very rare -- there should be at least a few star collisions among the two galaxies combined (approximate) 1.3 trillion stars. Even if there are not, some stars will surely come close enough to wreck havoc on the orbits of planets.
In the dense environment of globular clusters most of them have some star collisions. These stars are called Blue Stragglers due to the extra fuel a star gets from a collision.
If you are doing windows and still doing Visual Basic for Applications for general scripts you are part of the problem and really behind in your skill level.
Powershell has easily replaced most VBA script usage, there are still a few special cases where it has to be used.
I was just listing that as an example of an API. I wrote a few very simple scripts in VBA for Excel to maintain my nature lists. Bah, Excel is too limited for that use and is part of the reason I am writing my software project.
It's a question that just has too tremendously wide a scope to be a practical conversation starter. Yes, people have been far too rude about it, but this should never have been accepted as a story.
Yes, it should not have been accepted as I written it. I was looking for what in the command line world would be useful for extending _my_ software. The tricky part is explaining what my software is supposed to do and keeping my message short. In a nutshell it is software that is designed to allow a user to tailor their own user interface. Explaining how this is possible is difficult -- novel software ideas always are. If I could turn back time, I would rewrite the submission entirely. In any case, I am going to mine this discussion for its information. Despite the rats nest I created I am thankful for the response from the slashdot community.
The hot oil would whirl around faster in Jupiter's gravity. Difficult to predict by how much due to the viscosity of the cooking oil. I speculate it would travel about 60% faster (square root of 2.53), just like the most comfortable walking speed on Jupiter is 60% than on Earth. I say most comfortable because your legs work like a pendulum and the frequency of that is 60% higher. In lower and lower gravities walking becomes impractical because it is so slow -- you have to wait longer for your legs to complete a step.
http://www.phys.ufl.edu/courses/phy3221/fall07/DanielDimAnalysisMost%20Comfortable%20Walking%20Speed.doc
This isn't worthy of being a story, we all grew up using command lines.
Perhaps the question I should of asked was: if you were to design a GUI that is designed to be a design your own user interface what basic tools would you provide? I am surprised that made it to the front page, especially after I felt that I got most of what I wanted from the first replier.
I probably deserve much of the flaming. My question had a grammar error in it that I couldn't correct because it was already posted. Also my question was a bit misleading.
I am building a generalized personal organizer. For myself, command line utilities can reduce my workload, no need to reinvent what is already out there. When I am done this organizer it will be customizable in many ways, including shelling out to the command line. In my documentation I would provide a list of the ways my software could be extended. I was asking the slashdot community what command line utilities could be used to extend a "user-customizable" GUI.
In my limited spare time over the last two years I have written about 10000 lines of code and will in a few months I will have a photo organizer I can use and if I am lucky I will be able to get my nature observation/checklist "database" up and running as well before May. However, it will take a long time to get a finished product out.
I programmed it in VB6 although in retrospect I should have tried a later version of VB. (For lists, for using multiple CPUs, etc) The work required to port it would be daunting so I have stuck with VB6 for now.
My experience in computers started with the Vic 20, then MSDOS, then Windows. I have not tried linux but I have been curious about it.
So far my program has a not-so-friendly multidimensional mind-mapping-like backend (like the abandoned GZZ software), a menuing system, a photo organizer and a table to database-like stuff. The menuing system includes all the functionality you would find in a taskbar, conventional menus, right-click context menus and more. The menuing system would have features that are designed to reduce the number of mouse strokes required to get something done. For example if you had a folder of pictures with ducks and shorebirds, instead of starting at the base of the taxonomy hierarchy you would spawn and bar for ducks and a bar for shorebirds. For every duck or shorebird you tag, you have at least two mouse strokes. You might think, why not use a Treeview control? With a treeview control you can spend a lot of time expanding and collapsing branches plus grrrrr scrolling up and down.
I hope in the end I can avoid running afoul of all those ridiculous software patents that I don't know about out there. I know about the zigzag patent and will consult with Ted Nelson when the software is almost complete. About a year ago I emailed him of my plans and he said he would not stop my development. I hope he likes what I have done when I get it finished. Perhaps my software could eventually be used to create his Xanadu software assuming he doesn't find someone else to build it for him first.
I am both a techno nerd (I spend a most of my evenings on a computer) but I am also an outdoors nerd. I have field guides on just about everything - birds, dragonflies, lichens, mosses, etc. I try to get my daughters out as much as I can, but I am not afraid to expose them to tech as well. Although we do limit TV. It is getting more difficult to get my five year old out on trails. With luck she will retain some interest in nature. Currently she knows more about the local birds and animals than the average adult. My favorite moment with her is guiding her though an almost cave-like crevice that started at the top of a hill and went to the base of a river near a dam. It is one of the few places that would be impossible for her to walk on her own. She also likes exploring shorelines with lots of exposed rocks.
GUI's are limited because they are walled gardens. That is you can directly use a feature in one program from another. But I believe that it is possible to create a GUI with the flexibility of a command line. For example, you could create a photo organizer with the essential photo organizing tools. Then some other user could extend that photo organizer with photo editing tools via popular command line utilities such as Irfanview, Exiftool, FFMpeg and others. The user would have control over key/mouse assignments, positioning in the menus etc within the GUI without programming.
Slashdot Mirror
As much as I'm deeply-not-outraged by AC, there is a distinction to be made: Everyone operates under what might be called 'moral myopia': things closer to them(either literally geographically closer, or socially/in-their-living-room-by-TV/etc.) affect them more, more distant things affect them less. This is just how humans are specced. Plus, if it didn't work that way, the utterly incomprehensible scale of continual human tragedy worldwide would probably reduce us to nonfuctional, catatonic shells.
Before humanity rose in power by the massive energy content of fossil fuels the world past the boundaries of your nation was practically unknown. You couldn't care about the people half way around the world because there was zero accessible information on them.
When the Milky Way and Andromeda "collide" no stars will collide. Star formation will begin a new due to the exchange of interstellar gases and the two galaxies will merge..
I disagree. While the spaces between the stars are enormous making star collisions very rare -- there should be at least a few star collisions among the two galaxies combined (approximate) 1.3 trillion stars. Even if there are not, some stars will surely come close enough to wreck havoc on the orbits of planets.
In the dense environment of globular clusters most of them have some star collisions. These stars are called Blue Stragglers due to the extra fuel a star gets from a collision.
If you are doing windows and still doing Visual Basic for Applications for general scripts you are part of the problem and really behind in your skill level. Powershell has easily replaced most VBA script usage, there are still a few special cases where it has to be used.
I was just listing that as an example of an API. I wrote a few very simple scripts in VBA for Excel to maintain my nature lists. Bah, Excel is too limited for that use and is part of the reason I am writing my software project.
It's a question that just has too tremendously wide a scope to be a practical conversation starter. Yes, people have been far too rude about it, but this should never have been accepted as a story.
Yes, it should not have been accepted as I written it. I was looking for what in the command line world would be useful for extending _my_ software. The tricky part is explaining what my software is supposed to do and keeping my message short. In a nutshell it is software that is designed to allow a user to tailor their own user interface. Explaining how this is possible is difficult -- novel software ideas always are. If I could turn back time, I would rewrite the submission entirely. In any case, I am going to mine this discussion for its information. Despite the rats nest I created I am thankful for the response from the slashdot community.
His message is that the eduction system is designed not to education. His Underground History of American Education is available full text online. http://news.slashdot.org/story/04/09/06/1722203/the-underground-history-of-american-education http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/ He has other books that are easier reads if you choose.
I think that Germs, Guns, and Steel by Jared Diamond is an important and eye opening read.
The hot oil would whirl around faster in Jupiter's gravity. Difficult to predict by how much due to the viscosity of the cooking oil. I speculate it would travel about 60% faster (square root of 2.53), just like the most comfortable walking speed on Jupiter is 60% than on Earth. I say most comfortable because your legs work like a pendulum and the frequency of that is 60% higher. In lower and lower gravities walking becomes impractical because it is so slow -- you have to wait longer for your legs to complete a step. http://www.phys.ufl.edu/courses/phy3221/fall07/DanielDimAnalysisMost%20Comfortable%20Walking%20Speed.doc
This isn't worthy of being a story, we all grew up using command lines.
Perhaps the question I should of asked was: if you were to design a GUI that is designed to be a design your own user interface what basic tools would you provide? I am surprised that made it to the front page, especially after I felt that I got most of what I wanted from the first replier.
I probably deserve much of the flaming. My question had a grammar error in it that I couldn't correct because it was already posted. Also my question was a bit misleading. I am building a generalized personal organizer. For myself, command line utilities can reduce my workload, no need to reinvent what is already out there. When I am done this organizer it will be customizable in many ways, including shelling out to the command line. In my documentation I would provide a list of the ways my software could be extended. I was asking the slashdot community what command line utilities could be used to extend a "user-customizable" GUI. In my limited spare time over the last two years I have written about 10000 lines of code and will in a few months I will have a photo organizer I can use and if I am lucky I will be able to get my nature observation/checklist "database" up and running as well before May. However, it will take a long time to get a finished product out. I programmed it in VB6 although in retrospect I should have tried a later version of VB. (For lists, for using multiple CPUs, etc) The work required to port it would be daunting so I have stuck with VB6 for now. My experience in computers started with the Vic 20, then MSDOS, then Windows. I have not tried linux but I have been curious about it. So far my program has a not-so-friendly multidimensional mind-mapping-like backend (like the abandoned GZZ software), a menuing system, a photo organizer and a table to database-like stuff. The menuing system includes all the functionality you would find in a taskbar, conventional menus, right-click context menus and more. The menuing system would have features that are designed to reduce the number of mouse strokes required to get something done. For example if you had a folder of pictures with ducks and shorebirds, instead of starting at the base of the taxonomy hierarchy you would spawn and bar for ducks and a bar for shorebirds. For every duck or shorebird you tag, you have at least two mouse strokes. You might think, why not use a Treeview control? With a treeview control you can spend a lot of time expanding and collapsing branches plus grrrrr scrolling up and down. I hope in the end I can avoid running afoul of all those ridiculous software patents that I don't know about out there. I know about the zigzag patent and will consult with Ted Nelson when the software is almost complete. About a year ago I emailed him of my plans and he said he would not stop my development. I hope he likes what I have done when I get it finished. Perhaps my software could eventually be used to create his Xanadu software assuming he doesn't find someone else to build it for him first.
I am both a techno nerd (I spend a most of my evenings on a computer) but I am also an outdoors nerd. I have field guides on just about everything - birds, dragonflies, lichens, mosses, etc. I try to get my daughters out as much as I can, but I am not afraid to expose them to tech as well. Although we do limit TV. It is getting more difficult to get my five year old out on trails. With luck she will retain some interest in nature. Currently she knows more about the local birds and animals than the average adult. My favorite moment with her is guiding her though an almost cave-like crevice that started at the top of a hill and went to the base of a river near a dam. It is one of the few places that would be impossible for her to walk on her own. She also likes exploring shorelines with lots of exposed rocks.
GUI's are limited because they are walled gardens. That is you can directly use a feature in one program from another. But I believe that it is possible to create a GUI with the flexibility of a command line. For example, you could create a photo organizer with the essential photo organizing tools. Then some other user could extend that photo organizer with photo editing tools via popular command line utilities such as Irfanview, Exiftool, FFMpeg and others. The user would have control over key/mouse assignments, positioning in the menus etc within the GUI without programming.