What you call a design failure is usually just a feature nerds care about and typical users don't.
Most classes of user will have some feature they care about that "typical" users don't. You can (and must) disappoint some of them, but you can't disappoint all of them.
and that's why the iPod, iPhone, and iPad have outsold ever competitor no matter what the nerds have called failures
Android phones are outselling iPhone, actually. By a large margin. That's not an apples to oranges comparison; the iPhone outsells any given Android phone. But it does ruin any picture of Android as a nerd toy.
And most programmers and engineers refuse to even consider that adapting a device/UI to the user is far more valuable and marketable than features that users can't figure out how to use because they're not interested in learning to think like an engineer or programmer just to play their music, make a phone call, or surf the web, or check email.
Hmm. Make a phone call... Ah, touch the phone icon and select a recent number, or push Contacts for the phone book or phone again to dial manually. Surf the web.. tap the search box in the top of the screen. Check email... touch the email icon.
So how does that all work on the iPhone that's so much better?
College / University was originally set up centuries ago to educate the kids of the idle rich. Tradition dies hard. From an educational standpoint, english and art ARE equal to engineering in terms of importance. A well educated citizen should know at least a little about Impressionist paintings, and at least a little about Fourier transforms.
I daresay there's more engineers who know a little about Impressionist paintings than art historians who know a little about Fourier transforms.
In theory this sort of education only applies to the "liberal arts" schools; in practice in the US even the "Polytechnics" and "Institutes of Technology" have to do it to maintain their accreditation as universities.
I think the "not understanding user experience" is a big problem in the tech industry, and Apple seems to be the only company paying attention to the user experience. Nerds/engineers simply fail to understand; the whole thing goes over their heads.
I'm not sure what the whole sneering-at-nerds thing is on Slashdot ("News for nerds..."); a bunch of sales guys, lawyers, atheletes, and models joined? Self deprecation? A few long-running trolls? Hopefully the last.
Anyway, it's not true that nerds/engineers fail to understand. Most, I think, can see the problem. However, the subset who can find a solution is pretty small. And the kind of company where a good UX is valued over feature checklists is pretty rare.
This means that people who are good at some categories in the IQ test, also tend to be good at others. This is the meaning of 'generalized intelligence' and it is a non-trivial, empirical fact of humans.
This is true, but the claim of many IQ test detractors isn't that these aren't correlated, but that there are plenty of other forms of intelligence which are neither included nor correlated. Personally I haven't seen any studies showing this, but I haven't looked either. And some of the "intelligence" categories strike me as desperate, like Gardener's "bodily-kinesthetic" category; yeah, being able to dance well (or "catch a baseball") is impressive, but calling it "intelligence" is an abuse of the word.
No, still separate. But they're tentacles of the same Federal Government, and the fact that they're nominally separate means little, as the FSLIC (which was for savings&loans, not credit unions) debacle showed; the feds did not let the FSLIC go under, nor did they even leave depositors stuck with the losses that were above the FSLIC insurance limit (which was then $25,000, I believe, compared with the FDICs $100,000).
See, there's my problem, I never studied for the SATs or GRE. Hell, when I took the GRE, I was in a strange city (Manhattan), and my prep for the test was to find out which train to take in the morning, I think I only got about 6 hours sleep the night before.
Oddly enough, that was my prep for my Google interview. And I took the train the wrong way at first (got confused due to construction).
There is absolutely no possibility of confusion between a restaurant / cafe called appleaday and manufacturer of consumer electronics called Apple. None.
You've failed to consider trademark anti-dilution laws, which sets up a category of famous marks for which possibility of confusion doesn't matter. "Apple" is certainly such a famous mark.
Trademark anti-dilution laws are ridiculous, amounting to a "winner take all" principal in trademark law. But they are the best trademark laws money can buy.
Well's Fargo shall of Nov 16th be charging for checking accounts, at least in California, between $3 and $100 a month.
Waived on most accounts with direct deposit, which I use. They also waive it with a few other screwy things (like transferring $25/month to savings automatically -- as far as I can tell, you can automatically transfer the $25 right back the next day if you care to)
...and community banks, and I've always found I'm getting a better deal at my large bank (currently called Wells Fargo, formerly Wachovia, First Union, and Corestates). I get interest-paying (nearly zero, but still interest paying) no-fee checking, savings, a couple of credit cards, free online bill pay and a large ATM network and two free out-of-network withdrawals a month.
I have been to several University nerd parties where a Google employee coaches his friends and prospective candidates as to how to answer some of the questions. What I have notice is some of the questions require giving a wrong answer, and any answer other then the "one they want" will be a mark against you, no matter how correct it is.
So basically you need to get the answers or at least enough clues online to be able to pass the interview. You must study for it like the SAT's. I have even seen Google Interview Study parties. I consider this cheating, which is in my humble option complete bullshit.
Do unqualified people who attend these events actually succeed in getting jobs at Google? Do really good people who do not attend these events and interview with Google fail as a result? I'm genuinely curious; I work at Google and having seen the interview process, I find it hard to believe that such "cheating" is effective.
How do I know this? Because I've been advising organizations about secure system design for the past 20 years. Before that, I spent 15 years writing operating systems. So I've had a bit of experience watching other people's designs break while mine don't. What's your background?
I've been breaking organizations' idea of "secure systems" for almost as long. With a screwdriver if necessary. And not because I'm doing anything malicious, just because security inevitably gets in the way of getting things done. If it isn't getting in the way, security guys will turn up the pain until it does.
So good organizations say "no". Mediocre organizations say "whatever". Guess which ones get hacked more often?
The "good organizations" get hacked because the sales guy opened the malware-laden site he was sent in his phishing email, while you were yelling at the engineer for using a personal laptop.
It's cyclic. When I grew up, being technically-inclined was respected: you had understanding that others did not, and even if you didn't follow all social norms to the letter you were tolerated, because if nothing else you were useful. At some point that changed: people with "book larnin'" were to be feared, derided, discouraged from pursuing their interests and encouraged to be more "socially acceptable."
Certain subcultures have always derided "book larnin", and usually the mainstream has also. The post-Sputnik period in the US was an abberation.
The citizens of this country need to wake up and realize that it's the nerds that brought us out of the caves, that it was the nerds that figured out how the Universe works, the goddamn NERDS who taught us how to build things that people in other countries would buy so that we could all be gainfully employed.
And while the nerds were doing all those things, they were the slaves (often literally) of those with more useful talents, in particular the ability to give orders and have others follow them. That's all that counts, that's all that has ever counted, and if you're a nerd, the best you can hope for is to find a good patron among the ruling class. If you do, you're still a peon; you're still not making any decisions. But at least you'll be comfortable while you empower your master.
There's a certain "precision" depending on how many sats you are tracking. The bit where it puts you on the wrong road? That's crap handling of this uncertainty.
The device KNOWS about it. That it decides to stick you there and then insist that you cannot possibly be on the other road instead is a software fault.
It's not that simple. The geometric dilution of precision may be low enough to show with sufficient certainty that you're on the wrong road, with other error factors that the unit does not know about (like multipath) causing the problem.
Instead of all this fancy monitoring gear, you could just look at the times from toll to toll. It would be impossible to prove that a vehicle was never speeding, but easy to prove that it definitely was speeding.
They used to do that with toll tickets on some turnpikes. Most of the turnpike authorities stopped doing it when they realized it cut into toll revenue; that is, people would take crappier, slower alternate routes rather than risk a toll ticket or constantly watch the speedometer to make sure they didn't average above 55 on the highway. EZPass used to (and still may) promise not to do that; EZPass is not to be used for speeding tickets except speeding through the tollbooths themselves. However, it being a (multi-)government organization, they could go back on their word at any time.
Simple solution. Stop speeding. If people didn't speed, then the government wouldn't get any ticket revenues, and would be forced to find another income source (such as a direct tax).
How do you explain the fact that 1) The assumptions behind highway design speeds (according to AASHTO) have gotten considerably more conservative over the years, despite improvement in automobiles. 2) Highway design speeds are routinely exceeded without incident.
If it really appears the US government has too little debt, it's easy for it to borrow more. Even if the government couldn't find enough to spend on (ha!), there's always the option of lowering taxes on the 53% of us who are paying them. Anyway, if the US could consistently run a budget surplus for a while and pay the debt off slowly, the world financial system would have plenty of time to adapt.
What they need to make is a thermostat that will smack the hand of anyone who thinks that turning the thermostat up to 95 will heat the house up faster than just setting it to the desired temperature.
Depends on the heating system and the thermostat. Two-stage gas furnaces and heat pumps may indeed warm up faster when there's a large delta between current temperature and desired temperature.
It's really not novel (restricted stored value cards have been around for a long time, just not deceptively called "gift cards"), but IMO they can have this one. Restricting gift cards which remain under the control of the giver to one company is a good thing.
Which would a representative rather tout himself as voting for? "PROTECT IP" or "E-PARASITE"? This new bill name is a major victory for the other side. No rep is going to worry about his opponent saying he voted against the "E PARASITE" act.
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Most classes of user will have some feature they care about that "typical" users don't. You can (and must) disappoint some of them, but you can't disappoint all of them.
Android phones are outselling iPhone, actually. By a large margin. That's not an apples to oranges comparison; the iPhone outsells any given Android phone. But it does ruin any picture of Android as a nerd toy.
Hmm. Make a phone call... Ah, touch the phone icon and select a recent number, or push Contacts for the phone book or phone again to dial manually. Surf the web.. tap the search box in the top of the screen. Check email... touch the email icon.
So how does that all work on the iPhone that's so much better?
I daresay there's more engineers who know a little about Impressionist paintings than art historians who know a little about Fourier transforms.
In theory this sort of education only applies to the "liberal arts" schools; in practice in the US even the "Polytechnics" and "Institutes of Technology" have to do it to maintain their accreditation as universities.
I'm not sure what the whole sneering-at-nerds thing is on Slashdot ("News for nerds..."); a bunch of sales guys, lawyers, atheletes, and models joined? Self deprecation? A few long-running trolls? Hopefully the last.
Anyway, it's not true that nerds/engineers fail to understand. Most, I think, can see the problem. However, the subset who can find a solution is pretty small. And the kind of company where a good UX is valued over feature checklists is pretty rare.
This is true, but the claim of many IQ test detractors isn't that these aren't correlated, but that there are plenty of other forms of intelligence which are neither included nor correlated. Personally I haven't seen any studies showing this, but I haven't looked either. And some of the "intelligence" categories strike me as desperate, like Gardener's "bodily-kinesthetic" category; yeah, being able to dance well (or "catch a baseball") is impressive, but calling it "intelligence" is an abuse of the word.
No, still separate. But they're tentacles of the same Federal Government, and the fact that they're nominally separate means little, as the FSLIC (which was for savings&loans, not credit unions) debacle showed; the feds did not let the FSLIC go under, nor did they even leave depositors stuck with the losses that were above the FSLIC insurance limit (which was then $25,000, I believe, compared with the FDICs $100,000).
In case anyone is still wondering manhole covers are round because Reuleaux triangle-shaped manholes and covers are too expensive to fabricate.
Oddly enough, that was my prep for my Google interview. And I took the train the wrong way at first (got confused due to construction).
You've failed to consider trademark anti-dilution laws, which sets up a category of famous marks for which possibility of confusion doesn't matter. "Apple" is certainly such a famous mark.
Trademark anti-dilution laws are ridiculous, amounting to a "winner take all" principal in trademark law. But they are the best trademark laws money can buy.
Waived on most accounts with direct deposit, which I use. They also waive it with a few other screwy things (like transferring $25/month to savings automatically -- as far as I can tell, you can automatically transfer the $25 right back the next day if you care to)
Ah. I know that one's not true, by personal experience. Since I didn't study and did get hired. (I'm long out of college, BTW)
...and community banks, and I've always found I'm getting a better deal at my large bank (currently called Wells Fargo, formerly Wachovia, First Union, and Corestates). I get interest-paying (nearly zero, but still interest paying) no-fee checking, savings, a couple of credit cards, free online bill pay and a large ATM network and two free out-of-network withdrawals a month.
Do unqualified people who attend these events actually succeed in getting jobs at Google? Do really good people who do not attend these events and interview with Google fail as a result? I'm genuinely curious; I work at Google and having seen the interview process, I find it hard to believe that such "cheating" is effective.
I've been breaking organizations' idea of "secure systems" for almost as long. With a screwdriver if necessary. And not because I'm doing anything malicious, just because security inevitably gets in the way of getting things done. If it isn't getting in the way, security guys will turn up the pain until it does.
The "good organizations" get hacked because the sales guy opened the malware-laden site he was sent in his phishing email, while you were yelling at the engineer for using a personal laptop.
Certain subcultures have always derided "book larnin", and usually the mainstream has also. The post-Sputnik period in the US was an abberation.
And while the nerds were doing all those things, they were the slaves (often literally) of those with more useful talents, in particular the ability to give orders and have others follow them. That's all that counts, that's all that has ever counted, and if you're a nerd, the best you can hope for is to find a good patron among the ruling class. If you do, you're still a peon; you're still not making any decisions. But at least you'll be comfortable while you empower your master.
It's not that simple. The geometric dilution of precision may be low enough to show with sufficient certainty that you're on the wrong road, with other error factors that the unit does not know about (like multipath) causing the problem.
They used to do that with toll tickets on some turnpikes. Most of the turnpike authorities stopped doing it when they realized it cut into toll revenue; that is, people would take crappier, slower alternate routes rather than risk a toll ticket or constantly watch the speedometer to make sure they didn't average above 55 on the highway. EZPass used to (and still may) promise not to do that; EZPass is not to be used for speeding tickets except speeding through the tollbooths themselves. However, it being a (multi-)government organization, they could go back on their word at any time.
Or they'd reduce speed limits.
How do you explain the fact that
1) The assumptions behind highway design speeds (according to AASHTO) have gotten considerably more conservative over the years, despite improvement in automobiles.
2) Highway design speeds are routinely exceeded without incident.
Disputed; the US, UK, and Germany all have credible claims.
UK and Germany, but I believe the Germans got theirs running first.
Most of the major players in WWII, and some minor ones. I believe the UK had the best system, but the US got naming rights.
If it really appears the US government has too little debt, it's easy for it to borrow more. Even if the government couldn't find enough to spend on (ha!), there's always the option of lowering taxes on the 53% of us who are paying them. Anyway, if the US could consistently run a budget surplus for a while and pay the debt off slowly, the world financial system would have plenty of time to adapt.
Depends on the heating system and the thermostat. Two-stage gas furnaces and heat pumps may indeed warm up faster when there's a large delta between current temperature and desired temperature.
Not when you're working at the place designing the hardware. You can't do a new spin every time you need to make a change or fix something.
It's really not novel (restricted stored value cards have been around for a long time, just not deceptively called "gift cards"), but IMO they can have this one. Restricting gift cards which remain under the control of the giver to one company is a good thing.
Which would a representative rather tout himself as voting for? "PROTECT IP" or "E-PARASITE"? This new bill name is a major victory for the other side. No rep is going to worry about his opponent saying he voted against the "E PARASITE" act.