Moreover, the FDA has already been regulating what's available in liquid form (once the tea is brewed) --- Celestial Seasonings' Morning Thunder used to have much more caffeine than expresso coffee, the original packaging even included a ``caffeine-o-meter'' showing graphically how much, but apparently the FDA demanded that the formulation be changed.
1999 Chevy Cavalier is coming up on 160,000 miles --- relegated to daily commuter to work (15.2 miles round trip) and running around town, but it hasn't needed much in the way of maintenance:
- spark plug wires (for some reason these needed to be replaced early, minor inconvenience)
- coolant pump
- standard items (belts and the wiper blades, brake pads and tires you noted)
The 2006 Chevy Colorado just rolled over 90,000, but only goes on one long trip a year now (the beach vacation --- the first 75,000 or so were highway miles my father put on it) and the odd errand around town that requires a pick-up and a trip to work every week or two to keep the battery charged and the tires round --- did replace the battery w/ a long-life marine-oriented unit though.
The problem w/ HTML is that one is at the mercy of how the viewing program re-flows the text and breaks the lines.
One winds up w/ a presentation which is rife w/ widows, orphans, stacks and other bad breaks, and in which no effort is made to keep tables or figures viewable from where the original reference is made in the text.
- one word last lines (too many to count)
- # of lines on a page constantly changing to prevent widows / orphans
- overly loose line on the middle of pg. 20
- 3 word stack on pg. 21 (meditation/Meditation)
- 2 word stack on pg. 32 (black)
- 2 word stack on pg. 37 (the) Twice!
- six word river on pg. 40 (the/their/the/the/its/we)
- 2 word stacks on pg. 40 (a & We)
- 3 word stack on pg. 46 (the/the/The)
- 2 word stack on pg. 47 (a), awkward break at the bottom of the first page of Chapter VII where the poem is referred to, but appears on the following page
In the.pdf I believe there were only one or two places where I let two word stacks stand (because they were intractable) --- will have to try again using xetex and margin protrusion and character expansion (I'd used DEK's macro for hanging punctuation from _The TeXbook_).
The problem is, the NeXT UI was more than just appearance --- it was a synergy of:
- Display PostScript (it kills me that it's still possible to display something on-screen in Mac OS X or Windows and _not_ be able to print it as it appears on-screen!)
- Services --- I still miss poste.app's ``Print envelope from selected address'' Service, LaTeXiT doesn't work quite as well as TeXView.app's ``TeX eq -> EPS'' Service, &c.
- pop-up main menu which made how far one was from the main menu irrelevant and made some commands (e.g., ``Punch'' in Altsys Virtuoso) gestural
- tear off menus which meant no need for inscrutable toolbars --- just position a frequently needed command where one wanted it, then close the torn-off sub menu when done
The biggest difficulties in using LaTeX in publishing:
- not WYSIWYG (and TeXmacs never got any traction and unfortunately, LyX is different enough that it requires its own acronym --- WYSIWYM)
- requires up-front investment in creating macros for styles &c., discipline to use them as opposed to the ad hoc finger-painting which all-too-many Word and InDesign documents devolve into
- document classes must be programmed, not designed
- not a normal part of the design curriculum, so hiring is hard (I was the only candidate at my first job out of college who had experience in TeX)
- export to.html has a lot of options (hevea, tth, latex2html), none of which have achieved prevalence and all of which work differently
If typography were easy, Microsoft Word wouldn't be the foetid mess it's evolved into.
Someone needs to package up one of the latex html export options so as to work w/ Sigil or one of the other ePub editors / validators.
There are a number of drawing tools which offer the snap to geometric shape after drawing as an option:
- Corel's Grafigo (v1 can still be freely downloaded from www.archive.org --- http://www.corel.com/6763/downloads/grafigo/CorelGrafigo.exe )
- FutureWave SmartSketch / Macromedia Flash --- SmartSketch is even configurable in how loose / tight the recognition is
- SketchRight (this one seems to've vanished, but was quite good for architectural use)
I don't know that Apple did it right --- they were successful and sold lots, but if that were the metric for ``right'', Windows would be right and that's wrong --- points where the iPad falters in comparison to my Tablet PC:
- no stylus --- drawing isn't as responsive, isn't pressure-sensitive in a normal sense of the word and handwriting isn't a pervasive option
- screen is black in bright sunlight --- my Stylistic has a daylight viewable display and I use it as a map reader when travelling
- limited app selection --- I can't find equivalents to Futurewave SmartSketch, Macromedia FreeHand, TeXshell and LyX (and AutoDesk Sketchbook and ArtRage aren't as capable on the iPad)
Granted a bit larger and heavier (esp. w/ the high-capacity battery), but Tablet PCs failed on price and marketing more than anything else save possibly battery life (and that is hugely improved by using an SSD).
Of course, I'll probably replace my Stylistic w/ an Axiotron Modbook, but I'll have to wait for it to need replacing....
My Fujitsu Stylistic ST-4121 has a battery life of ~6--8 hours (this is boosted by a high-capacity battery and having switched to an SSD) --- and I carry a spare. On my last flight to Hawai'i, an iPad user and I ran out of battery life at about the same time (towards the end of the flight), and I simply swapped in my spare....
I'm able to run all the apps I need to (ArtRage, Autodesk Sketchbook, FutureWave SmartSketch, Macromedia FreeHand, Evernote (an old version), TeXshell and w32tex). Bought a wireless keyboard, but I haven't been able to find as nice a case for it as the one for my Stylistic 2300 (which I think represents the high point of case designs --- the harsh environment case was especially nice).
There's a picture on one of the archery discussion sites of an arrow from a target bow piercing the door of an SUV.
Native Americans bow draw weights were typically much greater than is typical today (~80 pounds) and iron or steel trade points had pretty much completely replaced stone and rawhide points w/ any group which had contact w/ European traders long before the late 1800s.
But, if memory serves the fuel tank was down between the arms of the frame?
To get it to run on SPARC would've just been a matter of uncommenting and re-compiling[1] --- NeXT/OPENstep ran on SPARC in addition to x86, HP PA-RISC and the original 680x0 boxes.
The problem w/ such a system is that one runs short of liquidity and it significantly curtails the ability to do business --- which arguably is a benefit as well, since slowing down financial transactions would help somewhat w/ stability.
What happens when a company like Nintendo takes 100 developers over 5 man years and creates something like Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword --- if people don't have the liquidity to purchase it, one doesn't get an additional valuation for goods of 3.28 million * $50 (disregarding the collector's bundle for simplicity's sake --- anyone know how many were made?) == $164,000,000 [1]
Things which LCARS had which don't seem to be showing up in graphical interfaces:
- customizable / auto-configuring button / command layouts
- chording where one can press multiple on-screen buttons at once to activate complex commands quickly
- easy / automatic sub-division of the screen to allow for multiple applications to be running while preserving state of those already in place and no sense of a need to switch from one to another (no click to focus --- tapping a button on an app on-screen should perform the function of the button --- this is one of the things which Mac OS X changed from NeXTstep which wastes a lot of my time at work)
Tobacco is a bad example since it is heavily regulated w/ allotments made out to specific farms on an acreage basis --- though farmers would often trade away their ``tobacco rights'' if they weren't interested in growing it.
Mac OS X / NextStep are more than just a Dock and graphical appearance:
NeXT niceties:
- Command= in any app to get a definition in Webster.app rocks - having all of your man pages, the sysadmin refs, and the works of Will Shakespeare and anything else you wish to add in Digital Librarian ensures one can look up what one needs at will. - Being able to improve the functionality of _any_ app by installing a Service or an app which provides a Service provides a synergy one doesn't get in Mac OS X where it's hit-or-miss whether or no an app supports Services (Cocoa apps do, Carbon and Java apps have to be specially coded) - having total control over the screen (you can drag off-screen and hide all but one pixel of the vertical menu, one tile of the Dock) - The vertical menu makes tear-off sub-menus make sense, which allows effortless customization of one's working environment for a given task w/o inscrutable toolbars - the pop-up menu means that the menu for the current app is always instantly available --- some commands can even become gestural in one's access to them, e.g., ``Punch'' in Altsys Virtuso, right-button-menu click, down a bit and straight over and release
Reasons why I prefer NextStep to Mac OS X:
- monolithic main menu bar w/ wasted blank space between the menus and the (optional) information / settings menus for Airport &c.
- verbose Mac-style shortcut descriptions w/ arcane symbols instead of concise NeXT-style shortcuts (in NeXTstep, Save is indicated by ``s'' and Save as by ``S'', no Command symbol (it's assumed---Control only as a modifier is reserved for personal shortcuts / Unix-use), Shift by case)
- Print, Hide, Services and Quit are no longer top-level menus where they made more sense and were quicker to get at.
- scroll bars on wrong side (this can't be fixed by theming 'cause Carbon apps are responsible for deciding where scroll bars are placed:( having them on the left means a window is more useful when partially dragged off-screen and results in less-frequent need to resize a window
- no Webster.app (this has since been addressed w/ 10.4), Digital Librarian / Shakespeare or Oxford's Book of Quotations --- in NeXTstep this meant one was guaranteed to have Command = _not_ used in an app so it'd be available for looking things up in Websters
- Pantone colour library --- used to be this was licensed w/ the system, now each graphic app which needs it has to pay a license, and one _doesn't_ get them in one's office apps (major negative for adhering to corporate identity programs where such is specced)
- vertical menu
- pop-up main menu --- this is wonderfully fast / efficient / elegant. For me, ``Punch'' in Altsys Virtuoso is pretty much a gesture, right-click, down a bit, then straight over and release
- repositionable sub-menus --- no need for inscrutable button bars, and one can make a given command easy to get to as needed (when doing lots of envelopes I tear off the poste.app Services menu, put it in the bottom left corner, then an envelope is merely a selection, mouse move to bottom left, click, shift right to the print menu (also aligned on the bottom edge for this) click away. (takes longer to say / type than to do)
I'd be glad to have one nearby --- the nearest ``maker'' type shop is over an hour's drive from me.
Even more interesting would be for the shop to have a 3D scanner which would allow them to scan broken parts, then assemble them on-screen / fill in missing bits and fabricate a replacement on the spot.
I re-wrote the typesetting back-end of an interactive, graphical ad design / generation program as a literate program and it made a _huge_ difference in the maintainability of the system and made adding additional features _much_ easier.
Actually, I want to see an RPG using full Motion Plus controls --- it was great that Nintendo added upgradeable items / crafting to Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, but I've beaten the game (twice! just finished Hero mode and only need to beat two more mini-games, then do boss rush for the Hyrule Shield) and would really like something a bit more involved than Red Steel 2 challenges, or mini-games in Skyward Sword.
Slashdot Mirror
Moreover, the FDA has already been regulating what's available in liquid form (once the tea is brewed) --- Celestial Seasonings' Morning Thunder used to have much more caffeine than expresso coffee, the original packaging even included a ``caffeine-o-meter'' showing graphically how much, but apparently the FDA demanded that the formulation be changed.
More (counter?) datapoints:
1999 Chevy Cavalier is coming up on 160,000 miles --- relegated to daily commuter to work (15.2 miles round trip) and running around town, but it hasn't needed much in the way of maintenance:
- spark plug wires (for some reason these needed to be replaced early, minor inconvenience)
- coolant pump
- standard items (belts and the wiper blades, brake pads and tires you noted)
The 2006 Chevy Colorado just rolled over 90,000, but only goes on one long trip a year now (the beach vacation --- the first 75,000 or so were highway miles my father put on it) and the odd errand around town that requires a pick-up and a trip to work every week or two to keep the battery charged and the tires round --- did replace the battery w/ a long-life marine-oriented unit though.
The problem w/ HTML is that one is at the mercy of how the viewing program re-flows the text and breaks the lines.
One winds up w/ a presentation which is rife w/ widows, orphans, stacks and other bad breaks, and in which no effort is made to keep tables or figures viewable from where the original reference is made in the text.
Comparison of a text set in both (plain) TeX ( http://mysite.verizon.net/william_franklin_adams/portfolio/typography/thebookoftea.pdf ) and as viewed as an ePub ( http://www.mobileread.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=57721&d=1283733557 ) in a nicely made version: ... the sort of typographic infelicities which even in the best ePub version can't be controlled for (when viewed in Sony's ebook viewing program) ---
- one word last lines (too many to count)
- # of lines on a page constantly changing to prevent widows / orphans
- overly loose line on the middle of pg. 20
- 3 word stack on pg. 21 (meditation/Meditation)
- 2 word stack on pg. 32 (black)
- 2 word stack on pg. 37 (the) Twice!
- six word river on pg. 40 (the/their/the/the/its/we)
- 2 word stacks on pg. 40 (a & We)
- 3 word stack on pg. 46 (the/the/The)
- 2 word stack on pg. 47 (a), awkward break at the bottom of the first page of Chapter VII where the poem is referred to, but appears on the following page
In the .pdf I believe there were only one or two places where I let two word stacks stand (because they were intractable) --- will have to try again using xetex and margin protrusion and character expansion (I'd used DEK's macro for hanging punctuation from _The TeXbook_).
(originally posted to http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=97542)
TEI.
http://www.tei-c.org/index.xml
The problem is, the NeXT UI was more than just appearance --- it was a synergy of:
- Display PostScript (it kills me that it's still possible to display something on-screen in Mac OS X or Windows and _not_ be able to print it as it appears on-screen!)
- Services --- I still miss poste.app's ``Print envelope from selected address'' Service, LaTeXiT doesn't work quite as well as TeXView.app's ``TeX eq -> EPS'' Service, &c.
- pop-up main menu which made how far one was from the main menu irrelevant and made some commands (e.g., ``Punch'' in Altsys Virtuoso) gestural
- tear off menus which meant no need for inscrutable toolbars --- just position a frequently needed command where one wanted it, then close the torn-off sub menu when done
William
The biggest difficulties in using LaTeX in publishing:
- not WYSIWYG (and TeXmacs never got any traction and unfortunately, LyX is different enough that it requires its own acronym --- WYSIWYM) .html has a lot of options (hevea, tth, latex2html), none of which have achieved prevalence and all of which work differently
- requires up-front investment in creating macros for styles &c., discipline to use them as opposed to the ad hoc finger-painting which all-too-many Word and InDesign documents devolve into
- document classes must be programmed, not designed
- not a normal part of the design curriculum, so hiring is hard (I was the only candidate at my first job out of college who had experience in TeX)
- export to
If typography were easy, Microsoft Word wouldn't be the foetid mess it's evolved into.
Someone needs to package up one of the latex html export options so as to work w/ Sigil or one of the other ePub editors / validators.
There are a number of drawing tools which offer the snap to geometric shape after drawing as an option:
- Corel's Grafigo (v1 can still be freely downloaded from www.archive.org --- http://www.corel.com/6763/downloads/grafigo/CorelGrafigo.exe )
- FutureWave SmartSketch / Macromedia Flash --- SmartSketch is even configurable in how loose / tight the recognition is
- SketchRight (this one seems to've vanished, but was quite good for architectural use)
William
I don't know that Apple did it right --- they were successful and sold lots, but if that were the metric for ``right'', Windows would be right and that's wrong --- points where the iPad falters in comparison to my Tablet PC:
- no stylus --- drawing isn't as responsive, isn't pressure-sensitive in a normal sense of the word and handwriting isn't a pervasive option
- screen is black in bright sunlight --- my Stylistic has a daylight viewable display and I use it as a map reader when travelling
- limited app selection --- I can't find equivalents to Futurewave SmartSketch, Macromedia FreeHand, TeXshell and LyX (and AutoDesk Sketchbook and ArtRage aren't as capable on the iPad)
Granted a bit larger and heavier (esp. w/ the high-capacity battery), but Tablet PCs failed on price and marketing more than anything else save possibly battery life (and that is hugely improved by using an SSD).
Of course, I'll probably replace my Stylistic w/ an Axiotron Modbook, but I'll have to wait for it to need replacing....
William
My Fujitsu Stylistic ST-4121 has a battery life of ~6--8 hours (this is boosted by a high-capacity battery and having switched to an SSD) --- and I carry a spare. On my last flight to Hawai'i, an iPad user and I ran out of battery life at about the same time (towards the end of the flight), and I simply swapped in my spare....
I'm able to run all the apps I need to (ArtRage, Autodesk Sketchbook, FutureWave SmartSketch, Macromedia FreeHand, Evernote (an old version), TeXshell and w32tex). Bought a wireless keyboard, but I haven't been able to find as nice a case for it as the one for my Stylistic 2300 (which I think represents the high point of case designs --- the harsh environment case was especially nice).
There's a picture on one of the archery discussion sites of an arrow from a target bow piercing the door of an SUV.
Native Americans bow draw weights were typically much greater than is typical today (~80 pounds) and iron or steel trade points had pretty much completely replaced stone and rawhide points w/ any group which had contact w/ European traders long before the late 1800s.
But, if memory serves the fuel tank was down between the arms of the frame?
Ah, here we are:
http://www.lotusespritworld.com/images/history/Delorean/Delorean_02.jpg
The body of a Delorean is fairly thin SS304 and the fuel tank itself doesn't look to be especially durable:
http://store.delorean.com/p-6552-fuel-tank.aspx
Tricky shot, but probably impossible.
To get it to run on SPARC would've just been a matter of uncommenting and re-compiling[1] --- NeXT/OPENstep ran on SPARC in addition to x86, HP PA-RISC and the original 680x0 boxes.
1 - for purposes of the joke...
The problem w/ such a system is that one runs short of liquidity and it significantly curtails the ability to do business --- which arguably is a benefit as well, since slowing down financial transactions would help somewhat w/ stability.
What happens when a company like Nintendo takes 100 developers over 5 man years and creates something like Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword --- if people don't have the liquidity to purchase it, one doesn't get an additional valuation for goods of 3.28 million * $50 (disregarding the collector's bundle for simplicity's sake --- anyone know how many were made?) == $164,000,000 [1]
William
1 - http://www.vgchartz.com/game/45669/the-legend-of-zelda-skyward-sword/
Not in a meaningful way.
Wages as a proportion of GDP peaked in 1972 and have been going down ever since.
I wish.
Things which LCARS had which don't seem to be showing up in graphical interfaces:
- customizable / auto-configuring button / command layouts
- chording where one can press multiple on-screen buttons at once to activate complex commands quickly
- easy / automatic sub-division of the screen to allow for multiple applications to be running while preserving state of those already in place and no sense of a need to switch from one to another (no click to focus --- tapping a button on an app on-screen should perform the function of the button --- this is one of the things which Mac OS X changed from NeXTstep which wastes a lot of my time at work)
William
Tobacco is a bad example since it is heavily regulated w/ allotments made out to specific farms on an acreage basis --- though farmers would often trade away their ``tobacco rights'' if they weren't interested in growing it.
Disk content used to be better (for graphic design at least) w/ full, licensed programs
Are they still using Chevy El Caminos for chase cars?
That's what they used when my father was in the Air Force (up to 1976).
Manufacturing ammunition is doable:
http://www.amazon.com/Do-Yourself-Gunpowder-Cookbook/dp/0873646754/ref=tmm_pap_title_0
and brass is easy to mill for cases or primer --- casting bullets is straight-forward enough.
William
Yep. Everyone should read:
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/102/open_snapper.html
Or look up the history of what happened to the Etch-a-Sketch:
http://www.peoplesworld.org/etch-a-sketch-and-the-wal-mart-phenomenon/
William
Or is one still reduced to including them as embedded .svg graphics?
Mac OS X / NextStep are more than just a Dock and graphical appearance:
NeXT niceties:
- Command= in any app to get a definition in Webster.app rocks
- having all of your man pages, the sysadmin refs, and the works of Will Shakespeare and anything else you wish to add in Digital Librarian ensures one can look up what one needs at will.
- Being able to improve the functionality of _any_ app by installing a Service or an app which provides a Service provides a synergy one doesn't get in Mac OS X where it's hit-or-miss whether or no an app supports Services (Cocoa apps do, Carbon and Java apps have to be specially coded)
- having total control over the screen (you can drag off-screen and hide all but one pixel of the vertical menu, one tile of the Dock)
- The vertical menu makes tear-off sub-menus make sense, which allows effortless customization of one's working environment for a given task w/o inscrutable toolbars
- the pop-up menu means that the menu for the current app is always instantly available --- some commands can even become gestural in one's access to them, e.g., ``Punch'' in Altsys Virtuso, right-button-menu click, down a bit and straight over and release
Reasons why I prefer NextStep to Mac OS X:
- monolithic main menu bar w/ wasted blank space between the menus and the (optional) information / settings menus for Airport &c. :( having them on the left means a window is more useful when partially dragged off-screen and results in less-frequent need to resize a window
- verbose Mac-style shortcut descriptions w/ arcane symbols instead of concise NeXT-style shortcuts (in NeXTstep, Save is indicated by ``s'' and Save as by ``S'', no Command symbol (it's assumed---Control only as a modifier is reserved for personal shortcuts / Unix-use), Shift by case)
- Print, Hide, Services and Quit are no longer top-level menus where they made more sense and were quicker to get at.
- scroll bars on wrong side (this can't be fixed by theming 'cause Carbon apps are responsible for deciding where scroll bars are placed
- no Webster.app (this has since been addressed w/ 10.4), Digital Librarian / Shakespeare or Oxford's Book of Quotations --- in NeXTstep this meant one was guaranteed to have Command = _not_ used in an app so it'd be available for looking things up in Websters
- Pantone colour library --- used to be this was licensed w/ the system, now each graphic app which needs it has to pay a license, and one _doesn't_ get them in one's office apps (major negative for adhering to corporate identity programs where such is specced)
- vertical menu
- pop-up main menu --- this is wonderfully fast / efficient / elegant. For me, ``Punch'' in Altsys Virtuoso is pretty much a gesture, right-click, down a bit, then straight over and release
- repositionable sub-menus --- no need for inscrutable button bars, and one can make a given command easy to get to as needed (when doing lots of envelopes I tear off the poste.app Services menu, put it in the bottom left corner, then an envelope is merely a selection, mouse move to bottom left, click, shift right to the print menu (also aligned on the bottom edge for this) click away. (takes longer to say / type than to do)
I'd be glad to have one nearby --- the nearest ``maker'' type shop is over an hour's drive from me.
Even more interesting would be for the shop to have a 3D scanner which would allow them to scan broken parts, then assemble them on-screen / fill in missing bits and fabricate a replacement on the spot.
Send your programmers this link:
http://www.literateprogramming.com/
and have them read this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Literate-Programming-Center-Language-Information/dp/0937073806/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1326462347&sr=8-1
``Propaganda'' here:
http://vasc.ri.cmu.edu/old_help/Programming/Literate/literate.html
I re-wrote the typesetting back-end of an interactive, graphical ad design / generation program as a literate program and it made a _huge_ difference in the maintainability of the system and made adding additional features _much_ easier.
Isn't that the technology underlying the Magic Trackpad?
http://www.apple.com/magictrackpad/
Is there a reason why one couldn't create a driver to work w/ two of them and print an overlay for a keyboard?
Actually, I want to see an RPG using full Motion Plus controls --- it was great that Nintendo added upgradeable items / crafting to Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, but I've beaten the game (twice! just finished Hero mode and only need to beat two more mini-games, then do boss rush for the Hyrule Shield) and would really like something a bit more involved than Red Steel 2 challenges, or mini-games in Skyward Sword.