Denken... ist nicht mehr und nicht weniger Organ des Wahrnehmens wie Auge und Ohr. So wie jenes Farben, dieses Tone, so nimmt das Denken Ideen wahr. (GOETHES ERKENNTNISTHEORIE)
Is it possible to find a view of the essential nature of man such as will give us a foundation for everything else that comes to meet us -- whether through life experience or through science -- which we feel is otherwise not self-supporting and therefore liable to be driven by doubt and criticism into the realm of uncertainty? The other question is this: Is man entitled to claim for himself freedom of will, or is freedom a mere illusion begotten of his inability to recognize the threads of necessity on which his will, like any natural event, depends? (The Philosophy of Freedom, 1918 Introduction)
it was in 1984 that we already had ResEdit which abstracted the whole GUI from the code -- it did such a good job, that end users could open a shipping application executable, and go in and change bitmaps, menu keyboard shortcuts, dialogue texts, and sounds -- so long as they kept the same resource ID, the app would keep on working.
this system was eminently useful in getting mac applications translated into languages other than english, as any user could open the shipping application with resedit, start translating strings, save a copy of the resource, and start shipping a translated version. if the translated text was longer, and wouldn't fit in the dialogue box -- no problem, you could alter the window dimensions right there, and since the ID of the dialogue box was still the same, everything still worked.
brilliant, that's how good it was in 1984... then came windows, and we lost all that. some of it survived in the NeXT OS, which carried over the 'Interface Builder' paradigm to unix. this is ultimately the source of application frameworks, and the nested folder structure of an.app in OSX, and its a really nice system once you work with it -- it also lets people responsible for layout to do so without having to bug the programmers. abstracting the GUI from the code like this lets the programmers concentrate on coding, and helps the GUI guys get the tools to make things right from the user perspective.
When i was young It seemed that life was so wonderful A miracle, oh it was beautiful, magical And all the birds in the trees Well theyd be singing so happily Oh joyfully, oh playfully watching me
But then they sent me away To teach me how to be sensible Logical, oh responsible,practical And they showed me a world Where i could be so dependable Oh clinical, oh intellectual, cynical...
Fortune Magazine: What has always distinguished the products of the companies you've led is the design aesthetic. Is your obsession with design an inborn instinct or what?
Steve Jobs: We don't have good language to talk about this kind of thing. In most people's vocabularies, design means veneer. It's interior decorating. It's the fabric of the curtains and the sofa. But to me, nothing could be further from the meaning of design. Design is the fundamental soul of a man-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service. The iMac is not just the colour or translucence or the shape of the shell. The essence of the iMac is to be the finest possible consumer computer in which each element plays together.
On our latest iMac, I was adamant that we get rid of the fan, because it is much more pleasant to work on a computer that doesn't drone all the time. That was not just "Steve's decision" to pull out the fan; it required an enormous engineering effort to figure out how to manage power better and do a better job of thermal conduction through the machine. That is the furthest thing from veneer. It was at the core of the product the day we started.
This is what customers pay us for--to sweat all these details so it's easy and pleasant for them to use our computers. We're supposed to be really good at this. That doesn't mean we don't listen to customers, but it's hard for them to tell you what they want when they've never seen anything remotely like it.
oh -- wait -- the 'verify CD' wouldn't get past uncompressing the kernal image... maybe my 12 hour download is corrupted - after packet checking? guess we'll just have to wait another day to find out... aaargh!! patience geek, for --
The trouble with doing something right the first time is that nobody appreciates how difficult it was. (La Rochefoucauld)
cant even get the iso install CD to fully boot (!) it gets to the point where it starts to load the linux kernal, and then...
[55.018231] unable to locate RSDP (invalid compressed format (err=2) [55.028758] Kernal panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount roof fs on unknown-block(1,)
and it insists on making the 1024x768 LCD screen a 800x600 screen by default unless i manually hack the xorg.conf file (ugh) -- a normal user would NEVER know how to do that. oh, and thinkpad 770 sound never worked...:-\
| > Interestingly, Microsoft forgoes a touch-sensitive scrollwheel | > in favour of wheel-shaped buttons. | | Duh, patents. They didn't "forgo", | they "prevented a giant lawsuit they were sure to lose."
they also forewent the fastest way to scroll...
imho -- after you've used the scroll wheel on an ipod, it will just feel so clunky to use a zune.
apple paid a lot of attention to getting the details right on the ipod, because they know that a small thing repeated often enough is a big thing. make the interface slightly slower, and generally less elegant, and it adds up to being a clunker in comparison.
the ipod rules, because it is really usable, and integrates all its features in an elegant way. it is very hard for a beaurocracy to produce something elegant. and this is why microsoft will never kill the ipod...
i think this is very good for microsoft. they're finally looking beyond where the OS ends, and actually thinking of the whole experience.
imitation is the sincerest form of flaterry, and apple's excellence in design has forced microsoft to think more broadly about the user's experience. its nice to see them broadening their horizons -- even if ever so slightly.;-}
for consumers, the box and the OS are one and the same. apple has always known this -- they are not an either/OR hardware OR software company -- they are a both/AND company, they build value reciprocally, by looking at them as a whole.
microsoft has traditionally never done this. that they are, is a sign that they're making their first steps towards actually thinking about the computer as a 'whole widget' -- good for them.:D
they're not requiring compliance, but they are offering a way for those who want to take part of a coherent design -- to do so. let them continue to play catch-up to apple's innovation.:D
in the meantime -- here's some words from the very ones they're trying to immitate:
From:
Jonathan Ive on Design
Certainly, the PC industry has never revered design, preferring blocky beige boxes or, more recently, coloured go-faster curves devoid of real function. He's scornful of those who use 'swoopy shapes to look good, stuff that is so aggressively designed, just to catch the eye. I think that's arrogance, it's not done for the benefit of the user.'
By contrast, he says, 'you won't be able to find a single thing on an Apple that hasn't had thought put into it'...
With the first iMac the goal wasn't to look different, but to build the best integrated consumer computer we could. If as a consequence the shape is different, then that's how it is. The thing is, it's very easy to be different, but very difficult to be better. That's what we have tried to do with the new iMac.'
(THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME, Interview with Jonathan Ive,
Charles Arthur talks to the designer of the iMac, January 14 2002)
Steve Jobs on Design
Fortune Magazine: What has always distinguished the products of the companies you've led is the design aesthetic. Is your obsession with design an inborn instinct or what?
Steve Jobs: We don't have good language to talk about this kind of thing. In most people's vocabularies, design means veneer. It's interior decorating. It's the fabric of the curtains and the sofa. But to me, nothing could be further from the meaning of design. Design is the fundamental soul of a man-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service. The iMac is not just the colour or translucence or the shape of the shell. The essence of the iMac is to be the finest possible consumer computer in which each element plays together.
On our latest iMac, I was adamant that we get rid of the fan, because it is much more pleasant to work on a computer that doesn't drone all the time. That was not just "Steve's decision" to pull out the fan; it required an enormous engineering effort to figure out how to manage power better and do a better job of thermal conduction through the machine. That is the furthest thing from veneer. It was at the core of the product the day we started.
This is what customers pay us for--to sweat all these details so it's easy and pleasant for them to use our computers. We're supposed to be really good at this. That doesn't mean we don't listen to customers, but it's hard for them to tell you what they want when they've never seen anything remotely like it.
the question 'can games make you cry' is about equivalent to asking the question 'can books make you cry' -- how about wood chips. perhaps the content which we have paid people so much to create, can trigger certain responses -- if we're susceptible to them.
if you burn your iTunes Store DRM tracks onto an Audio CD, it will no longer be DRM protected, and it can be freely used and converted for use on any other player -- the issue is not a matter of can/cant, but of convenience.
competition creates its efficiencies; but it also creates its inefficiencies. it has been remarked by a german that america is often very innefficient.
why? well, in america, first they construct a road. then they remember that they need sewers, so a different department goes and tears up the street the road crew had built, and lays in sewers, and puts the road back together again.
then the power company comes along, they want to lay power -- so they dig another ditch, tear up the road, and put in the power. then comes the gas company, and then the phone company, and then the cable company, all digging their own ditches -- that's america.
in germany, the town gets together, find out all who need to be involved, and then lay down one large pipe -- road and concourse are built together from the outset, and then you can lay in your: gas, water, cable, etc. as you wish. anyone who wants to use it pays a fee. --road doesn't need to get torn up, community works TOGETEHER.
now, whether it be america and germany -- or whoever (or pick your favourite parties) -- the efficiency of good community is not always factored in by those who only value competition.
Slashdot Mirror
Denken... ist nicht mehr und nicht weniger
Organ des Wahrnehmens wie Auge und Ohr.
So wie jenes Farben, dieses Tone,
so nimmt das Denken Ideen wahr.
(GOETHES ERKENNTNISTHEORIE)
P2P survives on the goodwill of its users.
This is How BitTorrent Will Die From Within.
there is a serious philosophic treatment on the subject of free will, here:
The Philosophy of Freedom
Is it possible to find a view of the essential nature of man such as will give us a foundation for everything else that comes to meet us -- whether through life experience or through science -- which we feel is otherwise not self-supporting and therefore liable to be driven by doubt and criticism into the realm of uncertainty? The other question is this: Is man entitled to claim for himself freedom of will, or is freedom a mere illusion begotten of his inability to recognize the threads of necessity on which his will, like any natural event, depends? (The Philosophy of Freedom, 1918 Introduction)
it was in 1984 that we already had ResEdit which abstracted the whole GUI from the code -- it did such a good job, that end users could open a shipping application executable, and go in and change bitmaps, menu keyboard shortcuts, dialogue texts, and sounds -- so long as they kept the same resource ID, the app would keep on working.
.app in OSX, and its a really nice system once you work with it -- it also lets people responsible for layout to do so without having to bug the programmers. abstracting the GUI from the code like this lets the programmers concentrate on coding, and helps the GUI guys get the tools to make things right from the user perspective.
this system was eminently useful in getting mac applications translated into languages other than english, as any user could open the shipping application with resedit, start translating strings, save a copy of the resource, and start shipping a translated version. if the translated text was longer, and wouldn't fit in the dialogue box -- no problem, you could alter the window dimensions right there, and since the ID of the dialogue box was still the same, everything still worked.
brilliant, that's how good it was in 1984... then came windows, and we lost all that. some of it survived in the NeXT OS, which carried over the 'Interface Builder' paradigm to unix. this is ultimately the source of application frameworks, and the nested folder structure of an
best regards,
j.
People who work sitting down get paid more
than people who work standing up. (Odgen Nash)
zune does not play VBR MP3 files...!!
aaargh!!!
j
When i was young
It seemed that life was so wonderful
A miracle, oh it was beautiful, magical
And all the birds in the trees
Well theyd be singing so happily
Oh joyfully, oh playfully watching me
But then they sent me away
To teach me how to be sensible
Logical, oh responsible
And they showed me a world
Where i could be so dependable
Oh clinical, oh intellectual, cynical...
('The Logical Song', by Supertramp)
with only ~2000 transistors per processor element,
what could one do with a 4096 Processor Array of 4bit 4004 Chips?
hmm...
Fortune Magazine: What has always distinguished the products of the
companies you've led is the design aesthetic. Is your obsession with design
an inborn instinct or what?
Steve Jobs: We don't have good language to talk about this kind of thing.
In most people's vocabularies, design means veneer. It's interior decorating.
It's the fabric of the curtains and the sofa. But to me, nothing could be
further from the meaning of design. Design is the fundamental soul of a
man-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers
of the product or service. The iMac is not just the colour or translucence or
the shape of the shell. The essence of the iMac is to be the finest possible
consumer computer in which each element plays together.
On our latest iMac, I was adamant that we get rid of the fan, because it is
much more pleasant to work on a computer that doesn't drone all the time.
That was not just "Steve's decision" to pull out the fan; it required an
enormous engineering effort to figure out how to manage power better and do
a better job of thermal conduction through the machine. That is the furthest
thing from veneer. It was at the core of the product the day we started.
This is what customers pay us for--to sweat all these details so it's easy
and pleasant for them to use our computers. We're supposed to be really good
at this. That doesn't mean we don't listen to customers, but it's hard for
them to tell you what they want when they've never seen anything remotely
like it.
http://www.fortune.com/fortune/2000/01/24/app6.ht
oh -- wait -- the 'verify CD' wouldn't get past uncompressing the kernal image...
maybe my 12 hour download is corrupted - after packet checking? guess we'll
just have to wait another day to find out... aaargh!! patience geek, for --
The trouble with doing something right the first time
is that nobody appreciates how difficult it was.
(La Rochefoucauld)
cant even get the iso install CD to fully boot (!)
it gets to the point where it starts to load the linux kernal, and then...
[55.018231] unable to locate RSDP (invalid compressed format (err=2)
[55.028758] Kernal panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount roof fs on unknown-block(1,)
and it insists on making the 1024x768 LCD screen a 800x600 screen by default
unless i manually hack the xorg.conf file (ugh) -- a normal user would NEVER
know how to do that. oh, and thinkpad 770 sound never worked...
guess its back to dapper for me....
now if all of you would need a spleen transplant,
just think how many more jobs we'd have...
seriously!
There are good soldiers and bad solders.
For the baddies -- piracy is the least of
the crimes they may get away with...
| > Interestingly, Microsoft forgoes a touch-sensitive scrollwheel
| > in favour of wheel-shaped buttons.
|
| Duh, patents. They didn't "forgo",
| they "prevented a giant lawsuit they were sure to lose."
they also forewent the fastest way to scroll...
imho -- after you've used the scroll wheel
on an ipod, it will just feel so clunky to use a zune.
apple paid a lot of attention to getting the details right on the ipod,
because they know that a small thing repeated often enough is a big thing.
make the interface slightly slower, and generally less elegant,
and it adds up to being a clunker in comparison.
the ipod rules, because it is really usable,
and integrates all its features in an elegant way.
it is very hard for a beaurocracy to produce something elegant.
and this is why microsoft will never kill the ipod...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeXAcwriid0&search
2cents
j
i think this is very good for microsoft. they're finally looking beyond where the OS ends, and actually thinking of the whole experience.
imitation is the sincerest form of flaterry, and apple's excellence in design has forced microsoft
to think more broadly about the user's experience. its nice to see them broadening their horizons -- even
if ever so slightly.
for consumers, the box and the OS are one and the same. apple has always known this -- they are not an either/OR
hardware OR software company -- they are a both/AND company, they build value reciprocally, by looking at them as a whole.
microsoft has traditionally never done this. that they are, is a sign that they're making their first steps towards actually
thinking about the computer as a 'whole widget' -- good for them.
they're not requiring compliance, but they are offering a way for those who want to take part of a coherent design -- to do so. let them continue to play catch-up to apple's innovation.
in the meantime -- here's some words from the very ones they're trying to immitate:
From:
Jonathan Ive on Design
Certainly, the PC industry has never revered design, preferring blocky
beige boxes or, more recently, coloured go-faster curves devoid of real
function. He's scornful of those who use 'swoopy shapes to look good,
stuff that is so aggressively designed, just to catch the eye. I think
that's arrogance, it's not done for the benefit of the user.'
By contrast, he says, 'you won't be able to find a single thing on an
Apple that hasn't had thought put into it'...
With the first iMac the goal wasn't to look different, but to build the
best integrated consumer computer we could. If as a consequence the shape
is different, then that's how it is. The thing is, it's very easy to be
different, but very difficult to be better. That's what we have tried to
do with the new iMac.'
(THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME, Interview with Jonathan Ive,
Charles Arthur talks to the designer of the iMac, January 14 2002)
Steve Jobs on Design
Fortune Magazine: What has always distinguished the products of the
companies you've led is the design aesthetic. Is your obsession with design
an inborn instinct or what?
Steve Jobs: We don't have good language to talk about this kind of thing.
In most people's vocabularies, design means veneer. It's interior decorating.
It's the fabric of the curtains and the sofa. But to me, nothing could be
further from the meaning of design. Design is the fundamental soul of a
man-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers
of the product or service. The iMac is not just the colour or translucence or
the shape of the shell. The essence of the iMac is to be the finest possible
consumer computer in which each element plays together.
On our latest iMac, I was adamant that we get rid of the fan, because it is
much more pleasant to work on a computer that doesn't drone all the time.
That was not just "Steve's decision" to pull out the fan; it required an
enormous engineering effort to figure out how to manage power better and do
a better job of thermal conduction through the machine. That is the furthest
thing from veneer. It was at the core of the product the day we started.
This is what customers pay us for--to sweat all these details so it's easy
and pleasant for them to use our computers. We're supposed to be really good
at this. That doesn't mean we don't listen to customers, but it's hard for
them to tell you what they want when they've never seen anything remotely
like it.
http://www.fortune.com/fortune/2000/01/24/app6.ht
the question 'can games make you cry' is about equivalent to asking
the question 'can books make you cry' -- how about wood chips.
perhaps the content which we have paid people so much to create,
can trigger certain responses -- if we're susceptible to them.
You sound like a Buddhist -- all Matter and
Energy is but ILLUSION -- i.e. 'Maya'.
Best,
John.
--
Life is an Illusion, but an Illusion which
we must take very seriously. (Aldous Huxley)
our mutual survival depends on our cooperation.
j
survival depends on the human race cooperating
with each other instead of fighting each other.
j
if you burn your iTunes Store DRM tracks onto an Audio CD,
it will no longer be DRM protected, and it can be freely used
and converted for use on any other player -- the issue is not
a matter of can/cant, but of convenience.
2cents
it just bugs them that 'annoymous holes' can exist
where people cant be traced to a fixed address on which
to pin responsibility.
2cents
competition creates its efficiencies; but it also creates its inefficiencies.
it has been remarked by a german that america is often very innefficient.
why? well, in america, first they construct a road. then they remember
that they need sewers, so a different department goes and tears up the
street the road crew had built, and lays in sewers, and puts the road back
together again.
then the power company comes along, they want to lay power -- so they
dig another ditch, tear up the road, and put in the power. then comes the
gas company, and then the phone company, and then the cable company,
all digging their own ditches -- that's america.
in germany, the town gets together, find out all who need to be involved,
and then lay down one large pipe -- road and concourse are built together
from the outset, and then you can lay in your: gas, water, cable, etc. as you
wish. anyone who wants to use it pays a fee. --road doesn't need to get
torn up, community works TOGETEHER.
now, whether it be america and germany -- or whoever
(or pick your favourite parties) -- the efficiency of good community
is not always factored in by those who only value competition.
2cents
j
what about metal objects like watches and glasses?
do they count, or is this specifically because
the cellphone is an RF-active device?
a REALLY productive programmer would be one
who could REDUCE the lines of code with a simpler
and more generalized algorithm.
2cents
j
Measuring software productivity by lines of code is like
measuring progress on an aeroplane by how much it weighs.
(Bill Gates)
ya know -- bottom line -- ya jus can't expect the other guys
to put down their guns if you're not willing to disarm yourself.
2cents
j