Damn, that was some ridiculous fanboism. Enron was a blue chip stock, caused the biggest bankruptcy the nation had ever seen, and screwed thousands of employees and shareholders. Applauding Bush's Justice Dept for investigating is like applauding me for pooping after consuming coffee and a bran muffin. If it didn't happen, something was seriously wrong.
Moreover, it was the downfall of Enron that highlighted Arthur Andersen and eventually exposed World Com. It's not like the Justice Dept. was on some sort of corporate crime crack down. They were dealing with the blatantly obvious.
Moreover, before you start cheerleading about "all of these corrupt companies were brought to Justice," I would suggest that you look at current practices for awarding and funding contracts for security, military, and reconstruction projects.
People generally refer to the "CSU System" or "UC System," but no one ever says "I attended CSU" or "I attended UC."
I don't quite know what that ETC journalist was writing about. He didn't seem to know the difference between -a- CSU, and an entire system of 23 individual universities.
Was he writing about assessment testing for Sac State (CSUS), or every single CSU (SFSU, SSU, Cal Poly, etc)? He keeps flip flopping between references to the CSU system, Sac State, and "CSU" as an incorrect acronym for Sac State.
"'money-grubbing' accusations." I don't recall writing anything like that. I wrote "franchise of sequels," which, umm, Harry Potter is. It's a franchise, and there are sequels.
Perhaps she should write an 8th book called "Harry Potter & The Irrationally Defensive Fanboys of Slashdot."
And by desiring proper typesetting tools you assume I'm asking for web text that is not live and accessible (as I noted in the past post)? You're ranting about the exact same thing I'm ranting about, current typesetting conventions.
The current convention, more or less consists of typeset text which is generally not live or accessible (ie can't select / copy / use with universal access software), or live / accessible text which can only be typeset in rudimentary ways. This is bad. You shouldn't need to use images or Flash simply to get proper tracking, a decent rag, control over and x-height, etc. Basic stuff.
Just because text is on a screen doesn't mean it's exempt from fundamental rules of typography.
Developing interactive content for the web is a lot like building a house out of crap you find at the junk yard. None of the materials are great, you'll be forced to use a lot of jankie things you'd rather not use, and you may need to substitute sheet-rock for side panels from an '82 Corolla.
In the case of anything involved in web development, I use tools because they're the best thing for the job. Unfortunately, "best" for web dev tools usually means "only" or "no one will be able to view your page if you develop with something else."
Java Script / J Script is the devil. Development is a sloppy crap shoot, but we use it because it's there. It's now being used for ridiculous things that it was never really designed for.
On one hand, web 2.0 AJAX sites are cool, on the other hand, AJAX makes me throw-up a little bit in my mouth every time I type it's name.
Re:CSS turns 10, typographers still crying
on
CSS Turns 10 Years Old
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Believe it or not, some graphic designers / typographers actually know what they hell they're doing; and they've been schooled to use typesetting to as a communication tool that can actually increase comprehension, legibility, reading speed, etc. Yet I can't necessarily say thats all, or the majority, of "graphic designers."
That said, yes, properly styled and typeset text needs to live and accessible. It's currently not (at least in any practical form), and that's the problem.
I'm sorry, but I can't wait until my options for web type are more then the font tag, a crappy style sheet, a picture that looks like type, Flash, or some sort of odd embeded media option that a only fraction of people can view. I hope by the time Slashdot posts "CSS turns 20" we've finally embraced our SVG overlords, or some sort of superior vector graphic solution.
Even if browsers were to finally properly support tracking, x-height controls, etc., CSS is still obnoxiously rudimentary in comparison to the typesetting tools that exist for static type. Hell, it's been over a decade and there is still no widespread adoption of a way to embed an f'n typeface in cross platform / cross browser way that does not annoy everyone. ugh.
Agreed. Sleep in MacOS has always worked much better then hibernate on Windows. I still have coworkers who wonder why I frequently close and open my Powerbook during meetings. They're accustom to their own hardware and they think I'm subjecting myself to long restore times.
If I did this with my HP notebook, I'd be forced to wait 30+ seconds. My Mac is up and running in two seconds... literally.
Now I will sleep safe knowing my credit card information lies safely within the hands of people formerly employed as barely legal professional pirates. Shhweet:D
It's not like the PMP market did not exist when the iPod first became available for Windows. Granted, it was smaller, much smaller, but it existed. You need to look at a single players sales relative to industry sales. Moreover, entering the market several years ago meant that you didn't need to compete with the brand recognition that exists today. Anyone who enters the market now will undoubtedly need to spend more time building recognition.
The Zune was destined to start slow. It could excrete pheromones and flying unicorns could transfer songs wirelessly... it doesn't matter. It's a new player and consumers need a chance to become familiar with it.
If it's still #13 in one year, then you might have a point, but it's been TWO WEEKS.
The thing to look at is market share, not units sold. You want to see how many iPods were sold relative to the number other PMPs sold. I'm fairly sure the iPod was not dominating the Windows PMP market 2 weeks after the Windows iPod hit the shelves.
As an interactive designer I tend to think that GUI could be even more of a departure from current conventions. We're still introducing conventions and metaphors that will not be common to the people using those laptops.
That said, you really need to do ethnographic field research in order to develop a proper GUI. Considering that we still fight with antiquated counterintuitive 1970's UI conventions in the first world, despite being bombarded with technology, I can all but guarantee our conventions are not going to fly outside of our bubble. Especially for someone who has been raised to comprehend a completely different system of metaphor and visual communication.
No doubt, there is value to giving people access to our silly window / menu GUIs so they can learn how our GUIs work. However, access to our GUI conventions can't impair someone who rarely uses a computer and simply needs access to something like vital medical information.
Media spin my ass. Are you asking for someone to report that, to quote Lewis Black, "We took our school[s] from the truly shitty shitty shitty, to stinky farty smelly?"
Considering there are about 16+ million high school students ( http://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/p20-533.pdf ), it should not be surprising to hear that an estimated 1 or 2 students don't make the cut out of a 30 student class. That was certainly the case when I was in high school over a decade a ago. Moreover, is anyone really -that- surprised that our larger school districts, which were the focus of that article, pull in the largest dropout rates?
Moreover, that ABC article is not even accounting for grade inflation, problems with standardized testing, and lowered standards. We're arguably giving diplomas to more and more people who probably wouldn't have received them 20 or 30 years ago.
Energy companies study oil and conclude... oil is awwwwwesome!
But seriously, if these guys really gave a crap about real research on peak oil they would work with a credible university and allow that university to conduct pear reviewed academic research.
"Just keep screaming that over and over, with nothing to back it up!"
Well, you could start subscribing to Communication Arts or start paying attention to people like Bill Buxton at Microsoft, then you could step back and look at the rest of the industry.
Or you could stare at MS Office XP or Office 03 and wonder how many monkeys with typewriters it look to craft that ridiculously retarded UI.
Once again, interaction designers tend to be folks who have been schooled in combination of graphic design, cognitive psychology, design research, computer science, and potentially product design. The antiquated concept of "engineer, then skin" is going bye bye. Hell, even Microsoft has a development environment specifically for interactive design which works in tandem with visual studio (MS Interactive Designer).
"Maybe some day an ambitious junior college graphics design course will have "make a gdk theme" for a project instead of the silly fake things they do now (obviously this would be more online oriented than print oriented)."
Aiming high huh? Let's get some Junior College kids to skin an OS in a semester.
IHMO this is one of the major hurdle's facing Linux adoption outside of the IT arena. Very few people in the software development industry fully understand visual communication, interactive design, and or the design process. Interactive design is viewed as some sort of BS skinning process that can be pumped out by some peons in a few months.
Interactive design for an OS should be conducted by a team of professional interactive designers. They should understand visual communication, cognitive psychology, quantitative / qualitative usability research, and at least a CS101 understanding of what a conditional statement, class, etc is. These people should be given 6 months to a year (if not longer) to do their work. They should be paid a salary which doesn't force them to live in their parent's basements. Furthermore, they should work with software engineering to build an interactive design specification that is adhered to religiously and implemented as closely as humanly possible.
Themes are retarded. They almost always result in something spec'd by software engineers and turd-polished by a lame underpaid or inexperienced graphic designer.
You're honestly comparing a intel fab to a ball park?
Once again, case in point, AT&T Park. The SF Embarcadero an industrial area, much of which sat under a freeway until it collapsed in '89. It was a land of warehouses sprinkled with crack heads and liquor stores. That's really not the case any more, and I would argue AT&T park has played the biggest role in initiating that change. It bought tourists, which attracted restaurants and, gasp, stores. You can actually buy food of the non-funion variety now.
It also raised property values which made it feasible for a lot of local warehouses to sell and relocate. That area has become one of the nicer places to live in SF. I highly doubt a new industrial building would've had the same effect.
That said, it was one of the few stadiums to be primarily -privately- funded. Moreover, tax breaks for revitalization initiatives are not uncommon. In the San Francisco Bay Area they're more common then sour dough bread, useless cable cars, and man on man action.
Slashdot Mirror
Damn, that was some ridiculous fanboism. Enron was a blue chip stock, caused the biggest bankruptcy the nation had ever seen, and screwed thousands of employees and shareholders. Applauding Bush's Justice Dept for investigating is like applauding me for pooping after consuming coffee and a bran muffin. If it didn't happen, something was seriously wrong.
Moreover, it was the downfall of Enron that highlighted Arthur Andersen and eventually exposed World Com. It's not like the Justice Dept. was on some sort of corporate crime crack down. They were dealing with the blatantly obvious.
Moreover, before you start cheerleading about "all of these corrupt companies were brought to Justice," I would suggest that you look at current practices for awarding and funding contracts for security, military, and reconstruction projects.
Yup. I don't care how pretty the cars are, the fact that they're indestructible is incredibly lame.
People generally refer to the "CSU System" or "UC System," but no one ever says "I attended CSU" or "I attended UC."
I don't quite know what that ETC journalist was writing about. He didn't seem to know the difference between -a- CSU, and an entire system of 23 individual universities.
Was he writing about assessment testing for Sac State (CSUS), or every single CSU (SFSU, SSU, Cal Poly, etc)? He keeps flip flopping between references to the CSU system, Sac State, and "CSU" as an incorrect acronym for Sac State.
"'money-grubbing' accusations."
I don't recall writing anything like that. I wrote "franchise of sequels," which, umm, Harry Potter is. It's a franchise, and there are sequels.
Perhaps she should write an 8th book called "Harry Potter & The Irrationally Defensive Fanboys of Slashdot."
No, It's going to be named " Harry Potter and the Franchise of Sequels."
And by desiring proper typesetting tools you assume I'm asking for web text that is not live and accessible (as I noted in the past post)?
You're ranting about the exact same thing I'm ranting about, current typesetting conventions.
The current convention, more or less consists of typeset text which is generally not live or accessible (ie can't select / copy / use with universal access software), or live / accessible text which can only be typeset in rudimentary ways. This is bad. You shouldn't need to use images or Flash simply to get proper tracking, a decent rag, control over and x-height, etc. Basic stuff.
Just because text is on a screen doesn't mean it's exempt from fundamental rules of typography.
Developing interactive content for the web is a lot like building a house out of crap you find at the junk yard. None of the materials are great, you'll be forced to use a lot of jankie things you'd rather not use, and you may need to substitute sheet-rock for side panels from an '82 Corolla.
In the case of anything involved in web development, I use tools because they're the best thing for the job. Unfortunately, "best" for web dev tools usually means "only" or "no one will be able to view your page if you develop with something else."
Java Script / J Script is the devil. Development is a sloppy crap shoot, but we use it because it's there. It's now being used for ridiculous things that it was never really designed for.
On one hand, web 2.0 AJAX sites are cool, on the other hand, AJAX makes me throw-up a little bit in my mouth every time I type it's name.
Believe it or not, some graphic designers / typographers actually know what they hell they're doing; and they've been schooled to use typesetting to as a communication tool that can actually increase comprehension, legibility, reading speed, etc. Yet I can't necessarily say thats all, or the majority, of "graphic designers."
That said, yes, properly styled and typeset text needs to live and accessible. It's currently not (at least in any practical form), and that's the problem.
I'm sorry, but I can't wait until my options for web type are more then the font tag, a crappy style sheet, a picture that looks like type, Flash, or some sort of odd embeded media option that a only fraction of people can view. I hope by the time Slashdot posts "CSS turns 20" we've finally embraced our SVG overlords, or some sort of superior vector graphic solution.
Even if browsers were to finally properly support tracking, x-height controls, etc., CSS is still obnoxiously rudimentary in comparison to the typesetting tools that exist for static type. Hell, it's been over a decade and there is still no widespread adoption of a way to embed an f'n typeface in cross platform / cross browser way that does not annoy everyone. ugh.
Ironic? No.
Fitting? Yes.
Agreed. Sleep in MacOS has always worked much better then hibernate on Windows. I still have coworkers who wonder why I frequently close and open my Powerbook during meetings. They're accustom to their own hardware and they think I'm subjecting myself to long restore times.
If I did this with my HP notebook, I'd be forced to wait 30+ seconds. My Mac is up and running in two seconds... literally.
Seriously, they do. Half of the time I think I have a good one, it turns out to be a squishy pile of wet sand in my mouth.
It's all about the Fugi Apple. Ya, they're kind of red... but not red red. Red Delicious is teh suck. Worst Apple Ever.
What's sarcasm?
Now I will sleep safe knowing my credit card information lies safely within the hands of people formerly employed as barely legal professional pirates. :D
Shhweet
It's not like the PMP market did not exist when the iPod first became available for Windows. Granted, it was smaller, much smaller, but it existed. You need to look at a single players sales relative to industry sales. Moreover, entering the market several years ago meant that you didn't need to compete with the brand recognition that exists today. Anyone who enters the market now will undoubtedly need to spend more time building recognition.
The Zune was destined to start slow. It could excrete pheromones and flying unicorns could transfer songs wirelessly... it doesn't matter. It's a new player and consumers need a chance to become familiar with it.
If it's still #13 in one year, then you might have a point, but it's been TWO WEEKS.
The thing to look at is market share, not units sold. You want to see how many iPods were sold relative to the number other PMPs sold.
I'm fairly sure the iPod was not dominating the Windows PMP market 2 weeks after the Windows iPod hit the shelves.
How many Windows iPods were sold a few weeks after they hit the market?
As an interactive designer I tend to think that GUI could be even more of a departure from current conventions. We're still introducing conventions and metaphors that will not be common to the people using those laptops.
That said, you really need to do ethnographic field research in order to develop a proper GUI. Considering that we still fight with antiquated counterintuitive 1970's UI conventions in the first world, despite being bombarded with technology, I can all but guarantee our conventions are not going to fly outside of our bubble. Especially for someone who has been raised to comprehend a completely different system of metaphor and visual communication.
No doubt, there is value to giving people access to our silly window / menu GUIs so they can learn how our GUIs work. However, access to our GUI conventions can't impair someone who rarely uses a computer and simply needs access to something like vital medical information.
And the power is so low that they're unlikely to sound good.
Media spin my ass. Are you asking for someone to report that, to quote Lewis Black, "We took our school[s] from the truly shitty shitty shitty, to stinky farty smelly?"
Considering there are about 16+ million high school students ( http://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/p20-533.pdf ), it should not be surprising to hear that an estimated 1 or 2 students don't make the cut out of a 30 student class. That was certainly the case when I was in high school over a decade a ago. Moreover, is anyone really -that- surprised that our larger school districts, which were the focus of that article, pull in the largest dropout rates?
Moreover, that ABC article is not even accounting for grade inflation, problems with standardized testing, and lowered standards. We're arguably giving diplomas to more and more people who probably wouldn't have received them 20 or 30 years ago.
Energy companies study oil and conclude... oil is awwwwwesome!
But seriously, if these guys really gave a crap about real research on peak oil they would work with a credible university and allow that university to conduct pear reviewed academic research.
"Just keep screaming that over and over, with nothing to back it up!"
Well, you could start subscribing to Communication Arts or start paying attention to people like Bill Buxton at Microsoft, then you could step back and look at the rest of the industry.
Or you could stare at MS Office XP or Office 03 and wonder how many monkeys with typewriters it look to craft that ridiculously retarded UI.
"Sounds like a bullshit title to me. "
You're a moron. I should simply quote that whole post and write "see what I mean?" under it.
Interaction design:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interaction_design
Moreover:
--- interactive designer
Once again, interaction designers tend to be folks who have been schooled in combination of graphic design, cognitive psychology, design research, computer science, and potentially product design. The antiquated concept of "engineer, then skin" is going bye bye. Hell, even Microsoft has a development environment specifically for interactive design which works in tandem with visual studio (MS Interactive Designer).
"Maybe some day an ambitious junior college graphics design course will have "make a gdk theme" for a project instead of the silly fake things they do now (obviously this would be more online oriented than print oriented)."
Aiming high huh? Let's get some Junior College kids to skin an OS in a semester.
IHMO this is one of the major hurdle's facing Linux adoption outside of the IT arena. Very few people in the software development industry fully understand visual communication, interactive design, and or the design process. Interactive design is viewed as some sort of BS skinning process that can be pumped out by some peons in a few months.
Interactive design for an OS should be conducted by a team of professional interactive designers. They should understand visual communication, cognitive psychology, quantitative / qualitative usability research, and at least a CS101 understanding of what a conditional statement, class, etc is. These people should be given 6 months to a year (if not longer) to do their work. They should be paid a salary which doesn't force them to live in their parent's basements. Furthermore, they should work with software engineering to build an interactive design specification that is adhered to religiously and implemented as closely as humanly possible.
Themes are retarded. They almost always result in something spec'd by software engineers and turd-polished by a lame underpaid or inexperienced graphic designer.
You're honestly comparing a intel fab to a ball park?
Once again, case in point, AT&T Park. The SF Embarcadero an industrial area, much of which sat under a freeway until it collapsed in '89. It was a land of warehouses sprinkled with crack heads and liquor stores. That's really not the case any more, and I would argue AT&T park has played the biggest role in initiating that change. It bought tourists, which attracted restaurants and, gasp, stores. You can actually buy food of the non-funion variety now.
It also raised property values which made it feasible for a lot of local warehouses to sell and relocate. That area has become one of the nicer places to live in SF. I highly doubt a new industrial building would've had the same effect.
That said, it was one of the few stadiums to be primarily -privately- funded. Moreover, tax breaks for revitalization initiatives are not uncommon. In the San Francisco Bay Area they're more common then sour dough bread, useless cable cars, and man on man action.