It depends what you mean by "mainstream". A large portion of computer users is the/. type of crowd. And I'm sure we'd all be interested in a new interpretation of how a computer works.
As for the other "mainstream", like I said, they'll most likely use whatever come pre-installed as long as it plays music and spider solitare.
Why can't we come up with a different desktop environment all together? Why does there have to be a "start menu" and an Explorer-type interface. I'm this is not the only way to give someone a usuable interface. What Linux needs to convince the average computer user (not Joe Moron...he'll buy whatever's on sale at Walmart that week) is a radical step in a different direction. Win XP/2000 gives me everything I need to do my coding/design/slacking off. What Linux needs to prove to me that it's not dying on the desktop is a bold new UI (and compatibility with Windows software wouldn't help either *nod to Lindows*).
When I saw Lycoris, I said to myself sarcasticly, "wow, I haven't seen this before." I need something that reflects the creativity (wishful thinking?) of the open source community before I drop Windows from my desktop.
Gamefan was a spectacular magazine, especially when Chris Slate was behind the helm. Gotta love Bill Donahue too. And if my memory serves right, they did have a pretty decent preview section (usually with a wishlist for the developer) and a female RPG reviewer. I'd really like to see something similar come back to the stands.
Yeah, where I work it's almost impossible to get fired. HR makes sure the manager takes every possible step to try to improve the employee's production. If you screw up or don't do any work, your boss has to explain the problem to you and offer a step-by-step solution. And the only reason HR does this is to cover their collective ass in case of lawsuits.
People ask me, "Why are you obsessed with Ken Goldberg and U.C. Berkeley?" I say, I'm not obsessed.
Riiiight. That's why it took him over 100 lines to START answering the last question.
This guy has a lot of interesting things to say, but I find it hard to agree with any of his beliefs. I think he pays too much attention to the politics and not enough attention to the "science".
IMO, the CYC project is what the AI field should be concentrating on. It might take a little longer to get good results, but it will give us a lot better understanding of ourselves.
You're kidding, right? Are you just trying to get a rise out of me or something? Because you're really nitpicking here.
How do you think music is made? Do us musicians just pull ideas out of our ass? They are tiny modifications, changes to other hooks, melodies we've heard.
If you look at it that way, there should be no difference between open and closed software projects either. I'm sure both Microsoft and Apple didn't pull every idea out of their asses to make their respective operating systems either. Of course artists have influences, but they don't actively contribute to each other's work. When I sit down to write some lyrics, I don't place a couple lines in a repository and have other songwriters add or edit lines. No, I write stuff from the heart. Obviously I might borrowing a small melody or idea from the Beatles, but I wouldn't consider that to be parallel to an open source software project.
But if you had read the whole post instead of taking small fragments out of context, we wouldn't be having this conversation right now.
I think it stems a little deeper than professional musicians not wanting to give their music away for free. If music was truely open source like the software projects, then it would involve many different musicians contributing riffs and lyrics and vocals and whatnot to create songs. The problem with this is that music (like the other forms of art) can be very personal. And while open source music might help those who aren't capable of creating a complete song, most professional musicians would want to control every creative aspect of the songwriting process.
Obviously it's a really cool idea, and a lot of musicians do it today to some extent (i.e. the Counting Crows getting the help of Sheryl Crow and Ryan Adams on a couple tracks on their latest album)...but I can't see it becoming any more than a novelty or side project.
Correct, but they're not really "working together" in the same sense. The article states that Motorola is developing the technology based on input from Sony, Nintendo and other developers. So it's more like the game developers are working together with Motorola.
...which is better than the title suggests, because just the thought of Nintendo and Sony working together makes me queesy.
I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure I saw a show on Tech TV that was going to put together a high-def DVR with a new video card they were reviewing. I only caught it for a couple of seconds though.
I think the very reason that they are redesigning the car from the ground up is so they don't have to forfeit safety features for functionality. They've tried to convert these "perfect" 100-year-old designs into electric vehicles and it didn't work. I'm no mechanic, but I figure once you've got an electric motor powering each wheel you can probably afford to add a reinforced body and safer tires.
...and it makes multimedia trivial (especially, for me, simple home digital movies).
I'll second that. I absolutely love the simple interface of iMovie. I have yet to find a Win program that comes close to it in terms of intuitive GUIs.
But switching to OSX is not as simple as everyone is implying. You do have to purchase an entirely new machine. To some extent, I'm still running the machine I bought six years ago and, for the most part, it's been above all the latest sys reqs. Every 6-12 months I upgrade one part of the machine (RAM, HD, cards, or chip/motherboard). Spending $100-$200 every year or so is a lot easier than throwing down a big chunk of cash for a Mac. But once I do decide I need a second machine, I'll most definitely buy a G4.
Besides, Windows is hardly as bad as everyone makes it out to be. I've left XP running without rebooting for almost a month once (I could have gone longer, but I got tired of hearing the damn case fans all night)...and I can get pretty rough on my machines. I'm constantly fragging or downloading or coding or playing with images. If you're not a retard behind the keyboard and keep track of all the crap you install, you'll rarely see a BSOD.
Entirely ethical, I should think. You gave me the code and the open-source license to modify it as I see fit, didn't you?
Ethical...perhaps, perhaps not. If they're getting paid by ad-views/clicks then you're taking away potential income for the OSS project. You're screwing over a project that's trying to provide a free OS. It's definitely wrong in one way or another.
I don't know about you, but i often buy things based on specs, reviews, and other peoples experiences, not because the company had a sexy web site.
You've obviously never had the <sarcasm>privilege</sarcasm> of working in retail. A non-geek is easily attracted to shiny things. Heck, even some geeks can't resist a shiny box.
A slick site _is_ a piece of bunk taped together with table tags:) or bloated flash...
and those table often result in an equally bloated site. To me, table != slick.
...i want it quickly and without having to go through some dumb interface.
Let's not confuse all Flash sites as the confusing, artsy fartsy Flash sites. The navigation does not have to be hidden in order for it to be considered a slick Flash site. Straight-foward navigation and seemless content presentation can easily be put otgether using Flash.
HTML is truely cross-platform and downwards compatible. A properly designed strict HTML 4.01/CSS2-Page will be displayed just fine in a proper HTML 2.0 Browser.
I would consider Flash to actually be more cross-platform and downwards compatible than HTML. Sure, a properly designed strict HTML 4.01/CSS2-Page look fine in a proper HTML 2.0 browser. But if you really want to get the most out of the language, you need everyone to have the latest and most compatible browser installed on their machine. And let's face it, very few web surfers have the latest IE or Netscape (due to ignorance or just plain laziness). Now, a properly designed Flash site can look twice as good as the HTML site, even on an older version of Flash. I'll grant you that not every person has Flash installed, but it's probably a great deal more than IE 6 users. When a Flash site is viewed on an older version, the actual design of the site is rarely compromised. When an HTML site with heavy CSS2 is viewed on any Netscape browser before 6, it's layout is, more often than not, extremely compromised. Plus, Flash is a lot easier to update than the browser. If user has an older version of Flash and a new site is loaded, they're informed of the suggested update and installation is automatic. And this all happens in a fraction of the time it takes the average Joe Schmuck to update his browser.
Ultimately, as a programmer, I love the markup languages. HTML is light, easy to use, and easy to code. But as an artist, I love the amount of control Flash gives me over the design. The fact that the presentation will look the exact same on every computer is enough to ignore the clunk. Very few programmers understand that the wrapping is often just as valuable as the package. But on the same token...just as there's such a thing as a dull, content-overloaded site, there's also such a thing as a design-heavy, contentless site. The trick is to find a balance between the two and, additionally, find a better way to do it.
I agree with you for the most part. But you're just looking at the Flash of today. Like I said, I'd like to see it become more transparent. When I'm not breaking standards to design Intranet websites, I'm doing graduate research on this very subject. And I still stand by my statement that Flash is the future simply because I can't see everyone adhering to all W3C standards at the same time. It just needs a bit more tweaking to meet exactly the concerns you've expressed...which I believe is possible.
I wasn't going to reply to this because you seem to have missed the point entirely, but here goes...
How is learning the latest version of CSS lazy? I'm simply saying that I shouldn't have to forfeit style just because some people have an unfounded hatred for IE or inability to keep their version of Netscape updated. I could most likely mimic a lot of fancy CSS features using old standards, but it would be sloppy and load a hell of a lot slower.
And yes, we have standards...but there's this crazy thing about standards. You see, when browsers don't adhere to them, they're useless. Furthermore, just because they're standards doesn't neccessarily mean they're the best for the job. A set of standards should be compiled using the best features of each browser and then all the browsers should adhere to the list. Unfortunately that kind of cooperation is very unlikely.
Wow, and theres me thinking that HTML was for presenting content not style.
That might be how it once was, but not anymore. Think about it. The majority of the Internet is used to either sell stuff (hence.com) or to express one's self (why else would Blogger.com be so popular). In these two cases, style wins out over content. If your company puts up a site, they want it to have a visual appeal. Sure, a lot of customers will probably just visit to find warrenty info or whatnot, but you also want to grab hold of prospective customers. A slick site will grab more customers than a piece of bunk taped together with table tags. First you grab their attention with style, then you give 'em the content.
As for 1337 d00d's tribute to gothic teen angst...I couldn't care less what he's got to say. But if 1337 d00d can make his site resemble a piece of art, I just might stick around to read his latest diatribe on dumb jocks.
Heck, even research sites could use a bit of flash. It would be nice to read something that's easy on the eyes. Not neccessary, but definitely a curtesy to the potential reader.
What does the next version of Windows offer the engineer?
Nothing, really. But it's hard for a software guy to understand that. I love playing with new toys and discovering that feature I should never have been able to live without. It's the simple little additions that add up to allow a higher productivity overall. But what would take an engineer a couple weeks to become familiar with a new program would take a software guy maybe a couple of days at the most. (Or perhaps this is more of an age issue than a "hardware guy" vs. "software guy" issue.)
stick a 1 on the beginning or a zero on the end and you'd end up with something more realistic
I'd hate to be the guy to have to dig up the version of WordPerfect that could read a 200-year-old document.;)
I admit that I am guilty of writing specifically for IE. The reason I do so is simply because IE gives me the best results. I find that when I place a tag in my HTML, it comes out looking just the way I want it on IE more often than it does on the "others". Take my job for example...here, the default browser installed on all the computers is Netscape 4.7. Because of this, the correct use of style sheets is damn near impossible. Most of the time I am forced the use incorrect HTML practices, such as using tables for layout, just to get a decent look.
Now when I'm home and designing websites, I am so fed up with stooping to the lowest common denominator that I end up throwing together a warning page and going nuts with CSS2. Granted I could probably use PHP or a separate style sheet to get a halfway decent look on the other browsers, but I have neither the time nor the patience to try to cater to everyone viewing my personal sites. I see web design as an art and I believe that IE best handles the "code" to present that art. Standardization would be wonderful, but don't go shunning IE just because it's easy M$ fodder.
And as for Flash, I honestly believe that it (or some other similar form) is the future of web design. To be able to get the exact same look regardless of the enduser's system is a web designer's wet dream. Add to that growing bandwidth of the average user and that clunky Flash site is looking more and more attractive.
Well yeah. Except in (a) I'm blaming the engineers while in (b) I'm blaming the government.:)
And you're absolutely right...it ain't broke. I don't mind the outdated software so much. I mean, I kinda miss the flashy animations of PowerPoint XP, but I can definitely manage with what I have.
But I am rather bitter at the fact that I haven't received the hardware upgrade yet. How's a guy supposed to play MiniPutt 2 during work hours when it takes 5 minutes to minimize a window??
I see the same thing at my work. Only the brand new Dells just introduced a month ago have 2000 installed.
I think the reason for the slow response time to new software is because:
a. The enigineers simply do not like (or, more likely, fear) change, and
b. A lot of the documents we work with are 20-year-old government documents written in programs like Word Perfect, so upgrading would cause a lot of compatibility issues.
Do you know that 1 volcanic eruption emits more "greenhouse gases" than the entire earth's population has produced in the past 30 years?
That's interesting...honestly. I've never heard that before. Can anyone back this up or show me a repuatble source for this info?
I for one, believe that the Earth can survive anything we do to it. But I think we should start taking responsibilty for what we have been doing to the environment...if not for the Earth, then for our own health and well-being.
Slashdot Mirror
It depends what you mean by "mainstream". A large portion of computer users is the /. type of crowd. And I'm sure we'd all be interested in a new interpretation of how a computer works.
As for the other "mainstream", like I said, they'll most likely use whatever come pre-installed as long as it plays music and spider solitare.
A polished desktop environment
Sure, if by polished you mean "clunky and slow".
Why can't we come up with a different desktop environment all together? Why does there have to be a "start menu" and an Explorer-type interface. I'm this is not the only way to give someone a usuable interface. What Linux needs to convince the average computer user (not Joe Moron...he'll buy whatever's on sale at Walmart that week) is a radical step in a different direction. Win XP/2000 gives me everything I need to do my coding/design/slacking off. What Linux needs to prove to me that it's not dying on the desktop is a bold new UI (and compatibility with Windows software wouldn't help either *nod to Lindows*).
When I saw Lycoris, I said to myself sarcasticly, "wow, I haven't seen this before." I need something that reflects the creativity (wishful thinking?) of the open source community before I drop Windows from my desktop.
Gamefan was a spectacular magazine, especially when Chris Slate was behind the helm. Gotta love Bill Donahue too. And if my memory serves right, they did have a pretty decent preview section (usually with a wishlist for the developer) and a female RPG reviewer. I'd really like to see something similar come back to the stands.
Yeah, where I work it's almost impossible to get fired. HR makes sure the manager takes every possible step to try to improve the employee's production. If you screw up or don't do any work, your boss has to explain the problem to you and offer a step-by-step solution. And the only reason HR does this is to cover their collective ass in case of lawsuits.
People ask me, "Why are you obsessed with Ken Goldberg and U.C. Berkeley?" I say, I'm not obsessed.
Riiiight. That's why it took him over 100 lines to START answering the last question.
This guy has a lot of interesting things to say, but I find it hard to agree with any of his beliefs. I think he pays too much attention to the politics and not enough attention to the "science".
IMO, the CYC project is what the AI field should be concentrating on. It might take a little longer to get good results, but it will give us a lot better understanding of ourselves.
Haha...I did the same thing. Unfortunately for me, it's not even noon here.
This is going to be a loooong day...
You're kidding, right? Are you just trying to get a rise out of me or something? Because you're really nitpicking here.
How do you think music is made? Do us musicians just pull ideas out of our ass? They are tiny modifications, changes to other hooks, melodies we've heard.
If you look at it that way, there should be no difference between open and closed software projects either. I'm sure both Microsoft and Apple didn't pull every idea out of their asses to make their respective operating systems either. Of course artists have influences, but they don't actively contribute to each other's work. When I sit down to write some lyrics, I don't place a couple lines in a repository and have other songwriters add or edit lines. No, I write stuff from the heart. Obviously I might borrowing a small melody or idea from the Beatles, but I wouldn't consider that to be parallel to an open source software project.
But if you had read the whole post instead of taking small fragments out of context, we wouldn't be having this conversation right now.
I think it stems a little deeper than professional musicians not wanting to give their music away for free. If music was truely open source like the software projects, then it would involve many different musicians contributing riffs and lyrics and vocals and whatnot to create songs. The problem with this is that music (like the other forms of art) can be very personal. And while open source music might help those who aren't capable of creating a complete song, most professional musicians would want to control every creative aspect of the songwriting process.
Obviously it's a really cool idea, and a lot of musicians do it today to some extent (i.e. the Counting Crows getting the help of Sheryl Crow and Ryan Adams on a couple tracks on their latest album)...but I can't see it becoming any more than a novelty or side project.
Correct, but they're not really "working together" in the same sense. The article states that Motorola is developing the technology based on input from Sony, Nintendo and other developers. So it's more like the game developers are working together with Motorola.
...which is better than the title suggests, because just the thought of Nintendo and Sony working together makes me queesy.
I don't know about you, but I think I can go through life without learning about panty liners. :)
I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure I saw a show on Tech TV that was going to put together a high-def DVR with a new video card they were reviewing. I only caught it for a couple of seconds though.
I think the very reason that they are redesigning the car from the ground up is so they don't have to forfeit safety features for functionality. They've tried to convert these "perfect" 100-year-old designs into electric vehicles and it didn't work. I'm no mechanic, but I figure once you've got an electric motor powering each wheel you can probably afford to add a reinforced body and safer tires.
...or does this guy remind you of Zephram Cochran.
He seems to have the attitude towards his project...maybe he saw First Contact last night, too.
...and it makes multimedia trivial (especially, for me, simple home digital movies).
I'll second that. I absolutely love the simple interface of iMovie. I have yet to find a Win program that comes close to it in terms of intuitive GUIs.
But switching to OSX is not as simple as everyone is implying. You do have to purchase an entirely new machine. To some extent, I'm still running the machine I bought six years ago and, for the most part, it's been above all the latest sys reqs. Every 6-12 months I upgrade one part of the machine (RAM, HD, cards, or chip/motherboard). Spending $100-$200 every year or so is a lot easier than throwing down a big chunk of cash for a Mac. But once I do decide I need a second machine, I'll most definitely buy a G4.
Besides, Windows is hardly as bad as everyone makes it out to be. I've left XP running without rebooting for almost a month once (I could have gone longer, but I got tired of hearing the damn case fans all night)...and I can get pretty rough on my machines. I'm constantly fragging or downloading or coding or playing with images. If you're not a retard behind the keyboard and keep track of all the crap you install, you'll rarely see a BSOD.
Entirely ethical, I should think. You gave me the code and the open-source license to modify it as I see fit, didn't you?
Ethical...perhaps, perhaps not. If they're getting paid by ad-views/clicks then you're taking away potential income for the OSS project. You're screwing over a project that's trying to provide a free OS. It's definitely wrong in one way or another.
I don't know about you, but i often buy things based on specs, reviews, and other peoples experiences, not because the company had a sexy web site.
:) or bloated flash...
...i want it quickly and without having to go through some dumb interface.
You've obviously never had the <sarcasm>privilege</sarcasm> of working in retail. A non-geek is easily attracted to shiny things. Heck, even some geeks can't resist a shiny box.
A slick site _is_ a piece of bunk taped together with table tags
and those table often result in an equally bloated site. To me, table != slick.
Let's not confuse all Flash sites as the confusing, artsy fartsy Flash sites. The navigation does not have to be hidden in order for it to be considered a slick Flash site. Straight-foward navigation and seemless content presentation can easily be put otgether using Flash.
HTML is truely cross-platform and downwards compatible. A properly designed strict HTML 4.01/CSS2-Page will be displayed just fine in a proper HTML 2.0 Browser.
I would consider Flash to actually be more cross-platform and downwards compatible than HTML. Sure, a properly designed strict HTML 4.01/CSS2-Page look fine in a proper HTML 2.0 browser. But if you really want to get the most out of the language, you need everyone to have the latest and most compatible browser installed on their machine. And let's face it, very few web surfers have the latest IE or Netscape (due to ignorance or just plain laziness). Now, a properly designed Flash site can look twice as good as the HTML site, even on an older version of Flash. I'll grant you that not every person has Flash installed, but it's probably a great deal more than IE 6 users. When a Flash site is viewed on an older version, the actual design of the site is rarely compromised. When an HTML site with heavy CSS2 is viewed on any Netscape browser before 6, it's layout is, more often than not, extremely compromised. Plus, Flash is a lot easier to update than the browser. If user has an older version of Flash and a new site is loaded, they're informed of the suggested update and installation is automatic. And this all happens in a fraction of the time it takes the average Joe Schmuck to update his browser.
Ultimately, as a programmer, I love the markup languages. HTML is light, easy to use, and easy to code. But as an artist, I love the amount of control Flash gives me over the design. The fact that the presentation will look the exact same on every computer is enough to ignore the clunk. Very few programmers understand that the wrapping is often just as valuable as the package. But on the same token...just as there's such a thing as a dull, content-overloaded site, there's also such a thing as a design-heavy, contentless site. The trick is to find a balance between the two and, additionally, find a better way to do it.
I agree with you for the most part. But you're just looking at the Flash of today. Like I said, I'd like to see it become more transparent. When I'm not breaking standards to design Intranet websites, I'm doing graduate research on this very subject. And I still stand by my statement that Flash is the future simply because I can't see everyone adhering to all W3C standards at the same time. It just needs a bit more tweaking to meet exactly the concerns you've expressed...which I believe is possible.
I wasn't going to reply to this because you seem to have missed the point entirely, but here goes...
How is learning the latest version of CSS lazy? I'm simply saying that I shouldn't have to forfeit style just because some people have an unfounded hatred for IE or inability to keep their version of Netscape updated. I could most likely mimic a lot of fancy CSS features using old standards, but it would be sloppy and load a hell of a lot slower.
And yes, we have standards...but there's this crazy thing about standards. You see, when browsers don't adhere to them, they're useless. Furthermore, just because they're standards doesn't neccessarily mean they're the best for the job. A set of standards should be compiled using the best features of each browser and then all the browsers should adhere to the list. Unfortunately that kind of cooperation is very unlikely.
Wow, and theres me thinking that HTML was for presenting content not style.
.com) or to express one's self (why else would Blogger.com be so popular). In these two cases, style wins out over content. If your company puts up a site, they want it to have a visual appeal. Sure, a lot of customers will probably just visit to find warrenty info or whatnot, but you also want to grab hold of prospective customers. A slick site will grab more customers than a piece of bunk taped together with table tags. First you grab their attention with style, then you give 'em the content.
That might be how it once was, but not anymore. Think about it. The majority of the Internet is used to either sell stuff (hence
As for 1337 d00d's tribute to gothic teen angst...I couldn't care less what he's got to say. But if 1337 d00d can make his site resemble a piece of art, I just might stick around to read his latest diatribe on dumb jocks.
Heck, even research sites could use a bit of flash. It would be nice to read something that's easy on the eyes. Not neccessary, but definitely a curtesy to the potential reader.
What does the next version of Windows offer the engineer?
;)
Nothing, really. But it's hard for a software guy to understand that. I love playing with new toys and discovering that feature I should never have been able to live without. It's the simple little additions that add up to allow a higher productivity overall. But what would take an engineer a couple weeks to become familiar with a new program would take a software guy maybe a couple of days at the most. (Or perhaps this is more of an age issue than a "hardware guy" vs. "software guy" issue.)
stick a 1 on the beginning or a zero on the end and you'd end up with something more realistic
I'd hate to be the guy to have to dig up the version of WordPerfect that could read a 200-year-old document.
I admit that I am guilty of writing specifically for IE. The reason I do so is simply because IE gives me the best results. I find that when I place a tag in my HTML, it comes out looking just the way I want it on IE more often than it does on the "others". Take my job for example...here, the default browser installed on all the computers is Netscape 4.7. Because of this, the correct use of style sheets is damn near impossible. Most of the time I am forced the use incorrect HTML practices, such as using tables for layout, just to get a decent look.
Now when I'm home and designing websites, I am so fed up with stooping to the lowest common denominator that I end up throwing together a warning page and going nuts with CSS2. Granted I could probably use PHP or a separate style sheet to get a halfway decent look on the other browsers, but I have neither the time nor the patience to try to cater to everyone viewing my personal sites. I see web design as an art and I believe that IE best handles the "code" to present that art. Standardization would be wonderful, but don't go shunning IE just because it's easy M$ fodder.
And as for Flash, I honestly believe that it (or some other similar form) is the future of web design. To be able to get the exact same look regardless of the enduser's system is a web designer's wet dream. Add to that growing bandwidth of the average user and that clunky Flash site is looking more and more attractive.
Ever thought that a) may be related to b)?
:)
Well yeah. Except in (a) I'm blaming the engineers while in (b) I'm blaming the government.
And you're absolutely right...it ain't broke. I don't mind the outdated software so much. I mean, I kinda miss the flashy animations of PowerPoint XP, but I can definitely manage with what I have.
But I am rather bitter at the fact that I haven't received the hardware upgrade yet. How's a guy supposed to play MiniPutt 2 during work hours when it takes 5 minutes to minimize a window??
I see the same thing at my work. Only the brand new Dells just introduced a month ago have 2000 installed.
I think the reason for the slow response time to new software is because:
a. The enigineers simply do not like (or, more likely, fear) change, and
b. A lot of the documents we work with are 20-year-old government documents written in programs like Word Perfect, so upgrading would cause a lot of compatibility issues.
Do you know that 1 volcanic eruption emits more "greenhouse gases" than the entire earth's population has produced in the past 30 years?
That's interesting...honestly. I've never heard that before. Can anyone back this up or show me a repuatble source for this info?
I for one, believe that the Earth can survive anything we do to it. But I think we should start taking responsibilty for what we have been doing to the environment...if not for the Earth, then for our own health and well-being.