"Don't make it snazzy, make it *functional*, snazzy can come later."
I was under the impression that most of the UIs for Linux already are functional.
With that said: Visual feedback is part of being functional. Imagine if ythe cursor you used in the field you typed this into didn't blink. You could adjust to it, but admittedly this 'snazzy' feature is helping you.
'Snazzy' is more benefical than most realize. Remember that we, as a species, are interactive creatures. Visual snazziness really isn't all that different from body language.
"Indiana Jones buttons that puff out smoothly animated clouds of smoke when you click on them"
This is kinda cool. I know it seems gimmicky and all, but I have to say there's something to be said for having a UI that subtley lets you know what you just clicked on.
I know a few people aren't keen on eye candy. They worry about slowing things down etc. But I have to say, in my own experience, the more visual feedback I get from my computer, the more attuned I get to using it. A lot of my actions become reflex instead of having to decipher what I should do next. For example, I use Opera. When a page is loading, a red X lights up. (Click on it and it stops the page from loading.) It's subtle, but I actually do react to that red icon there when it's on. Somewhere deep down, I have a sense of "This page is ready for you to browse". I find that sort of thing useful.
Of course, it can be done badly or absurdly, but eye candy like this can actually be really useful.
"when did Ford's thumb become a magic hitchhiking device?!?"
Try to imagine taking a suspenseful moment and using that time to explain (and illustrate) a sub-etha HitchHiking device in a movie. They chose a MUCH easier way of conveying the "he's Hitchiking" idea.
"I mean, yeah, the intro was pretty much the books, but what the heck was all that stuff afterwards?"
Would you really want to see what you've already read about?
Before you nod your head yes, consider this:
a.) A book to movie translation often causes changes in detail that most find offensive. This isn't due to lack of caring, but rather that movies are a very different story telling format from book.
b.) Would it be possible to be surprised by anything?
c.) Do you really want to be bothered by human-error-induced-inconsistencies?
"It is still a bit disappointing that Zaphod does not have his 2nd head on the movie."
After watching the BBC HitchHiker's Guide movie, I can forgive them for that.
"And Marvin looks like just a guy in a robot suit, Teletubbie-style. I thought the whole "brain the size of a planet" thing was more like a metaphor for his immense intellect, not just a huge head..."
Well.. I'm not sure what you're expecting, really. It's perfectly okay to have a guy in a 'robot suit'. Not sure if you're aware of this, but the actor who played Willow is inside that suit. I imagine once we see Marvin in relation to the characters, his dimensions will be a little more robote-esque. And, if that's not enough, eh well I just don't know what to tell ya. It's not like a real robot meant to interact with humans wouldn't look like somebody in a robot suit.
As for his big head... Man this is a symptom of a bigger problem. Movies are a visual medium, books aren't. The movie has to QUICKLY sell the idea to the audience that Marvin has a big brain. But if he says it, and his head is normal sized, does that even work?
I spotted something else with the trailer. Arther stuck his thumb out and a beam came from it. It didn't appear as though he was holding the special sub-etha device for that purpose. I was going to whine about it until I realized what that would look like on screen. It's one thing to say in a book "Thumb shaped device for Hitchhiking...", but then imagine the problem of communicating that exact same idea in a movie during a suspenseful event. I can see why they made that choice.
I think we're going to run into a LOT of issues like this. My advice is: Don't let it bother you. I don't think these are the choices of blasphemers, but rather the choices of somebody trying to solve a really really tough problem. In other words, don't get your expectations high that you're going to see a scene-by-scene reenactment of the book.
"You're right, it doesn't. it doesn't make you any more or less credible. Using correct spelling and grammar makes you at least appear to be more credible."
A bigger person wouldn't be measuring somebody's credibility on grammar and spelling, especially on a public forum where some type fast and don't double-check.
"This is exactly like Amway, in that you can either pay your monthly dues (to get the priviledge of selling crap to friends, family and neighbours) or you can recruit others to pay your monthly dues for you."
That's a bit of a stretch, dont'cha think?
a.) You can play the game at no cost. It's better if you pay for it. Any game or service is like that.
b.) If that's your definition of Amway, then is Slashdot included as well? I mean, afterall, ppl can get the stories sooner, comment on them quicker, and stand a better chance of getting modded up.
c.) Isn't this pretty much an admission that Ferion is not the scam you said it is? The worst 'crime' that you've pointed out is that the game is more attractive to paying customers. I'm sorry you don't like that, man.
Just to be clear: The 'free game' isn't talking about referalls, it's talking about the free version of the game with fewer features. This is spelled out quite cleary on the site:
"Q: Is Ferion free?
A: Yes and No, We allow you to trial Ferion unlimited. This means you can join any game at Ferion for free, without costs.. Once you are doing well you will run into a limitation in the techtree, we ask a small fee to remove the limit."
In that respect, it's like Quake 3's demo version. You can play it just fine, but you don't have the grenade launcher or CTF etc. Gotta pay for those. Hope that clears things up.:)
"Ferion: "It's free to play. Ferion: "well actually, it's only free to play if you sucker other people into paying for you."
Actually, there is a free game. Pay a little money, the game gets better. Refer somebody, they pay, you get a small reward. Referal program. Simple.:)
To anybody that's bothering to read this, I'll give you an example: Right now, Slashdot is free. If you pay for a subscription, you get bonus features like seeing stories sooner. Imagine if Slashdot were to say "okay, if somebody subscribes and says you recommended it, we'll give you a longer subscription." That's pretty much how Ferion works.
"ahh the irony of your post combined with your sig (Ferion being amway for geeks and all)."
Referall rewards != Amway. Besides, that's not what irony means. Perhaps if I had said "It's all a huge scam" and if Ferion were actually what you claim it to be, you could call me a hypocrite.:)
"...don't just do it because they think it is fun to piss off the world, they do it because they make lots and lots of money from it."
Funny thing is, they don't necessarily make money from people buying it, but rather the people advertising it. "Give me $10,000, and I'll get your message out to 10,000 people!""Okay! That's a lot cheaper than buying a banner on a big site!" (Note: The numbers are made up.)
Stolen?! Geez, guys. It's bad if IE doesn't catch up to FireFox, but Ms is stealing if they do. So why aren't we burning OO at the stake for being a blatant Office rip-off? I know the answer, but few are willing to admit it.
"Rubbish. I'll decide what I do and don't find objectionable, thank you. I find threatening people's livelihoods in order to bully their governments into enacting the legislation you want to be very highly objectionable."
Yeah, but is that because the word "Microsoft" is in that sentence? What if it were IBM? Apple?
"HuffyUV is for video, and contrary as most people say, it is NOT lossless."
Um, yeah it is. I've analyzed it by re-encoding video several times and running a difference filter on it. You can put it, however, into a lossy mode and get a few more bits compressed in it.
Personally, I think this guy is missing the point of the numerical reviews.
"Does the quality of a game and the sum of the efforts put into its creation merely boil down to nothing more than a single or double digit number?"
No. It's a measurement of somebody's reaction to it. It's not a bad one, either. If a game rates an 8.2, for example, then it means that the reviewer thought it was pretty decent, just not earth shattering. If a reviewer says the graphics are 70%, then he's saying that it's not the most mind blowing graphics he's ever seen on that system. Basically, those numbers reflect the question: "On a scale between 1 and 10..."
I don't know why this guy is expecting more of this review system. I don't even know why he's hopping mad about it. He made a comment in the article that somebody gave him some shit about recommending Animal Crossing over Wind Waker with the reasoning that WW had a higher score. Sounds to me like his real problem is with stupid fanboy'ism, not with the reviews themselves.
"Until I see a game developed by an AAA game developing company rated at a 1 or a 0, their ratings hold no power in my book. If they think all high-budget games are "excellent" to the point of having 9.x ratings out of 10, then I certainly don't trust their opinion."
Example?
Not challenging ya really, I was just wondering if a AAA game company released a 1.0 stinker.
" I assume that rap compresses better because it has much more redundancy, that is, "wut wut wut" and some bassline will compress better than your everyday rock song."
Technical question: Does FLAC actually look at redundancy, or is there simply more blank noise they can run-length encode?
Just curious. There's a video codec called Huffy that does lossless compression between 2:1 and 4:1. I find this stuff interesting.:)
Slashdot Mirror
"Don't make it snazzy, make it *functional*, snazzy can come later."
I was under the impression that most of the UIs for Linux already are functional.
With that said: Visual feedback is part of being functional. Imagine if ythe cursor you used in the field you typed this into didn't blink. You could adjust to it, but admittedly this 'snazzy' feature is helping you.
'Snazzy' is more benefical than most realize. Remember that we, as a species, are interactive creatures. Visual snazziness really isn't all that different from body language.
"Indiana Jones buttons that puff out smoothly animated clouds of smoke when you click on them"
This is kinda cool. I know it seems gimmicky and all, but I have to say there's something to be said for having a UI that subtley lets you know what you just clicked on.
I know a few people aren't keen on eye candy. They worry about slowing things down etc. But I have to say, in my own experience, the more visual feedback I get from my computer, the more attuned I get to using it. A lot of my actions become reflex instead of having to decipher what I should do next. For example, I use Opera. When a page is loading, a red X lights up. (Click on it and it stops the page from loading.) It's subtle, but I actually do react to that red icon there when it's on. Somewhere deep down, I have a sense of "This page is ready for you to browse". I find that sort of thing useful.
Of course, it can be done badly or absurdly, but eye candy like this can actually be really useful.
"It was Ford who stuck out his thumb, and he had a glowing blue ring on it."
Err yeah. Oops. I had the right character in mind, just flubbed up the name. (Low sleep...)
"when did Ford's thumb become a magic hitchhiking device?!?"
Try to imagine taking a suspenseful moment and using that time to explain (and illustrate) a sub-etha HitchHiking device in a movie. They chose a MUCH easier way of conveying the "he's Hitchiking" idea.
"I mean, yeah, the intro was pretty much the books, but what the heck was all that stuff afterwards?"
Would you really want to see what you've already read about?
Before you nod your head yes, consider this:
a.) A book to movie translation often causes changes in detail that most find offensive. This isn't due to lack of caring, but rather that movies are a very different story telling format from book.
b.) Would it be possible to be surprised by anything?
c.) Do you really want to be bothered by human-error-induced-inconsistencies?
"No, the book (or radio series, or tv, or any combination of the above) says they're distant cousins, and IIRC share several of the same mothers..."
I just read the book a week ago: Yes, these two are related. It's a very vague reference.
"It is still a bit disappointing that Zaphod does not have his 2nd head on the movie."
After watching the BBC HitchHiker's Guide movie, I can forgive them for that.
"And Marvin looks like just a guy in a robot suit, Teletubbie-style. I thought the whole "brain the size of a planet" thing was more like a metaphor for his immense intellect, not just a huge head..."
Well.. I'm not sure what you're expecting, really. It's perfectly okay to have a guy in a 'robot suit'. Not sure if you're aware of this, but the actor who played Willow is inside that suit. I imagine once we see Marvin in relation to the characters, his dimensions will be a little more robote-esque. And, if that's not enough, eh well I just don't know what to tell ya. It's not like a real robot meant to interact with humans wouldn't look like somebody in a robot suit.
As for his big head... Man this is a symptom of a bigger problem. Movies are a visual medium, books aren't. The movie has to QUICKLY sell the idea to the audience that Marvin has a big brain. But if he says it, and his head is normal sized, does that even work?
I spotted something else with the trailer. Arther stuck his thumb out and a beam came from it. It didn't appear as though he was holding the special sub-etha device for that purpose. I was going to whine about it until I realized what that would look like on screen. It's one thing to say in a book "Thumb shaped device for Hitchhiking...", but then imagine the problem of communicating that exact same idea in a movie during a suspenseful event. I can see why they made that choice.
I think we're going to run into a LOT of issues like this. My advice is: Don't let it bother you. I don't think these are the choices of blasphemers, but rather the choices of somebody trying to solve a really really tough problem. In other words, don't get your expectations high that you're going to see a scene-by-scene reenactment of the book.
"You're right, it doesn't. it doesn't make you any more or less credible. Using correct spelling and grammar makes you at least appear to be more credible."
A bigger person wouldn't be measuring somebody's credibility on grammar and spelling, especially on a public forum where some type fast and don't double-check.
"This is exactly like Amway, in that you can either pay your monthly dues (to get the priviledge of selling crap to friends, family and neighbours) or you can recruit others to pay your monthly dues for you."
That's a bit of a stretch, dont'cha think?
a.) You can play the game at no cost. It's better if you pay for it. Any game or service is like that.
b.) If that's your definition of Amway, then is Slashdot included as well? I mean, afterall, ppl can get the stories sooner, comment on them quicker, and stand a better chance of getting modded up.
c.) Isn't this pretty much an admission that Ferion is not the scam you said it is? The worst 'crime' that you've pointed out is that the game is more attractive to paying customers. I'm sorry you don't like that, man.
Just to be clear: The 'free game' isn't talking about referalls, it's talking about the free version of the game with fewer features. This is spelled out quite cleary on the site:
:)
"Q: Is Ferion free?
A: Yes and No, We allow you to trial Ferion unlimited. This means you can join any game at Ferion for free, without costs.. Once you are doing well you will run into a limitation in the techtree, we ask a small fee to remove the limit."
In that respect, it's like Quake 3's demo version. You can play it just fine, but you don't have the grenade launcher or CTF etc. Gotta pay for those.
Hope that clears things up.
"Ferion: "It's free to play. Ferion: "well actually, it's only free to play if you sucker other people into paying for you."
:)
Actually, there is a free game. Pay a little money, the game gets better. Refer somebody, they pay, you get a small reward. Referal program. Simple.
To anybody that's bothering to read this, I'll give you an example: Right now, Slashdot is free. If you pay for a subscription, you get bonus features like seeing stories sooner. Imagine if Slashdot were to say "okay, if somebody subscribes and says you recommended it, we'll give you a longer subscription." That's pretty much how Ferion works.
"ahh the irony of your post combined with your sig (Ferion being amway for geeks and all)."
:)
Referall rewards != Amway. Besides, that's not what irony means. Perhaps if I had said "It's all a huge scam" and if Ferion were actually what you claim it to be, you could call me a hypocrite.
"...don't just do it because they think it is fun to piss off the world, they do it because they make lots and lots of money from it."
Funny thing is, they don't necessarily make money from people buying it, but rather the people advertising it. "Give me $10,000, and I'll get your message out to 10,000 people!" "Okay! That's a lot cheaper than buying a banner on a big site!" (Note: The numbers are made up.)
"Microsoft just can't win with you idiots."
I'm looking forward to a claim that MS stole features from Open Office. Heh.
"In either case, learn to spell. Proper English makes you a lot more credible."
Criticizing other people's spelling doesn't do much to make you any more credible.
"There have been other browsers before firefox that has used Tabbed browsing. Firefox is great but not all of its features are "new" ideas."
Isn't it sad how some here on Slashdot fish for negatives against Microsoft, then get modded up for them? I'm glad your post was modded up.
"I wonder what MS has stolen from firefox"
Stolen?! Geez, guys. It's bad if IE doesn't catch up to FireFox, but Ms is stealing if they do. So why aren't we burning OO at the stake for being a blatant Office rip-off? I know the answer, but few are willing to admit it.
"Rubbish. I'll decide what I do and don't find objectionable, thank you. I find threatening people's livelihoods in order to bully their governments into enacting the legislation you want to be very highly objectionable."
Yeah, but is that because the word "Microsoft" is in that sentence? What if it were IBM? Apple?
"I don't understand peoples desire to needlesly complicate simple projects."
Not every project has to be uber-practical, especially when somebody's lookin to expand their knowledge and have a little fun.
I swear, some people here need to have their nerd license revoked.
" That's a whole boatload of energy you're talking about..."
Ugh. Is that all?
"HuffyUV is for video, and contrary as most people say, it is NOT lossless."
Um, yeah it is. I've analyzed it by re-encoding video several times and running a difference filter on it. You can put it, however, into a lossy mode and get a few more bits compressed in it.
Personally, I think this guy is missing the point of the numerical reviews.
"Does the quality of a game and the sum of the efforts put into its creation merely boil down to nothing more than a single or double digit number?"
No. It's a measurement of somebody's reaction to it. It's not a bad one, either. If a game rates an 8.2, for example, then it means that the reviewer thought it was pretty decent, just not earth shattering. If a reviewer says the graphics are 70%, then he's saying that it's not the most mind blowing graphics he's ever seen on that system. Basically, those numbers reflect the question: "On a scale between 1 and 10..."
I don't know why this guy is expecting more of this review system. I don't even know why he's hopping mad about it. He made a comment in the article that somebody gave him some shit about recommending Animal Crossing over Wind Waker with the reasoning that WW had a higher score. Sounds to me like his real problem is with stupid fanboy'ism, not with the reviews themselves.
"Until I see a game developed by an AAA game developing company rated at a 1 or a 0, their ratings hold no power in my book. If they think all high-budget games are "excellent" to the point of having 9.x ratings out of 10, then I certainly don't trust their opinion."
Example?
Not challenging ya really, I was just wondering if a AAA game company released a 1.0 stinker.
" I assume that rap compresses better because it has much more redundancy, that is, "wut wut wut" and some bassline will compress better than your everyday rock song."
:)
Technical question: Does FLAC actually look at redundancy, or is there simply more blank noise they can run-length encode?
Just curious. There's a video codec called Huffy that does lossless compression between 2:1 and 4:1. I find this stuff interesting.
Heh. I wonder how many non-nerds out there have shelled out money for porn sites.