Sometimes your local wierd video shop will have this for rent, too.
Last year I was trying to dig up more info on them, just to see what happened to 'em, and only found the main guy's home page, who's now some kind of big-wig Video guy running a company serving Ad firms or something. Full circle, huh?
You can say that again. The Emergency Broadcast Network were doing it over ten years ago, and AFAIK were the first to tie a MIDI control to Video. If you've never seen their stuff, I highly recommend it. Way ahead of thier time. I think you can still buy their video on Amazon.
I'm not raggin' on Protools, it's just that it's not as simple a problem as you make it out to be. PTFree will *only* run on Windows 98, and nothing else. So it's not like everyone using Windows can just download PTFree and run with it, for most people are on W2k or XP now. Like me, I have to use W2K and Linux for work because of the software I use. I don't know about running the Mac version in OS X, if it's possible or not, but it's been my experance on my wife's machine that running 'classic' apps in OS X isn't really that great.
So I'm just saying that your simple 'just use PTFree' doesn't fly for a lot of people.
Pro Tools Free ain't free no more. At least, the only version that's still free is the one that only works on Windows 98 & Mac OS 9. To get the latest & best you got to buy the protool hardware...
"If Macs have sufficiently high quality A/D conversion for this purpose, then you should be able to use any recording software, and I believe there's plenty of it."
Plenty of it that costs way more than $50 that does the same thing. The closest thing I can find that does decent Amp-modeling and multi-track recording is at least over $100, if not closer to $200 or more. Unless you know of a $50 music recording application that does the same stuff...
Throw in the fact that it comes with plenty of other neat, helpful applications too, and the whole ilife pack starts to look like a ton of fun...
*every* time an artcle is posted about Linux/BSD vs. Windows/OS X usability, someone chimes in that 'if only the open source community could pick one developement platform, and limit user choice, then developers could focus on one platform, everything would work well, things would be easy, new users and business would love it, birds would sing, and MicroSoft would be overthrown'.
Then that guy gets modded up to +5.
Now, someone's making a serous effort to do *exactly that* and everyone's bitching about leaving out KDE and how it limits user choice, forces everyone to work on one platform, and how this will make things harder; when it appears that it has a large part to do with the licencing of QT vs. Gnome, and nothing about KDE or Gnome being 'better'.
Sheesh. And I'm sitting here posting about it. I can't think of what's sadder!
You're dead-on that, closed source or no, hitching your future to a particular bit of software is a gamble of sorts.
But at least with the open source option your data isn't tied up in a 'dead' and closed format, a dead-end. When you're talking about *years* of documents, drawings, pictures, and more, that becomes the 'millstone' and the software that was used doesn't matter so much.
Also more than once I've seen a great little bit of commercial software go onto the chopping block for reasons that had nothing to do with it's ability or use, but to do with business things that have nothing to do with the users. At least with open source if there are a handful of people using the software out there, I still have options, rather than being stuck again in a 'dead end'.
This has always happened. Even before the internet. The internet, just like with all things, just makes it possible to happen faster and at a larger scale. That's it. period. To beleve that things were better before the internet is to fail to the same fallicy of which you state, running with blinders on so you don't have to think and feel about things by yourself.
Oh yeah, but they were dead-on about those Ferrets. Yup. Bound to get loose, breed like crazy, and cause untold disaster. Yup. They would, uhhh, eat the freeways. or something.
It's not like the Fish and Game department is really an example of a shining beacon of intelligence. There are more Ferret owners in California than in most places, even though they are illegal here. Heck Petco has a whole isle devoted to the little bastards. You can get food, toys, cages, medicine... oh but you can't own a Ferret. It's like being in a Head shop amougst the bongs.
Anyways, if 'untold disaster' would have happened if they got loose, it would have happened by now, yet Ferrets are still illegal. Even people trying to overturn the law try every year and fail every year. Just means that they are smuggled into the state, sometimes treated inhumanely, encourages improper breeding (ala puppyfarming), have a hard time getting to a vet, and just makes the Ferrets, the state, and the Ferret owners more misrable because a state agency is unable to admin it's completely wrong.
Not like Drugs, Tho. Those just ain't in California, for it's illegal. Cause untold disaster. Yup.
I wouldn't be doing as well right now if I hadn't had got to college. So I must be dieing too...
oh wait...
Hello, again Apple's in the lead here. First Consumer-grade computer with a full unix under the hood, an bone-simple UI over the top, and 64-bits behind it all... This is something no one else is doing right now, but will be what everyone's doing five years from now, save MicroSoft (no unix-core for them, for they will just take there ball home if no one wants to play by thier rules).
Oh heck yeah. Here in San Francisco we've got a paper ballot system, and a rather questionable Electorial office. Last time there was a big measure on the ballot to make a local goverment-owned power company, and give PG & E the boot, the vote was very close but PG & E won after spending a ton of money on advertising.
Oh, and those ballot boxes they found floating in the bay I'm sure helped too. they 'blew of a dock', supposedely after the votes had been counted. Uhh yeah... that's it...
No it's not. Buy a Casio with full sized keys. Learning to play any instrament is a long but very fun and rewarding thing to do.
And Beethoven?!? How many little kids you see sit down and plunk out 'Fur Elise' over and over? Beethoven ain't so hard. Now maybe if you're talking Bartok, I could understand...
My point is that rather than just being a consumer of culture, start participating in it, and find out that it's as much fun to make the music as it is to listen to the music, even if both have a certain time and place where best applied. Actually, in the end, you'll wind up with a much larger apprecation for music in general, which will lead you to not being suckered into buying $20 cd's by the latest generic Radio band.:)
Even Better yet: $7.99 used CD's at your local indy music store. Or $10 CD's that you buy off a indy band's website directly. Or $1 vynil at the thrift store (tons of great old country/lounge/jazz/weird stuff)
But the Best: Start makin' your own damn music. Serously. It's tons of fun. You can get a guitar for $100 bucks, learn some Beatles tunes, and have way more fun in the long run than that $100 Beatles box set. Then make up your own stupid songs, pretend you're a rock star, and have a total blast in your Den.
little hard to play guitar while driving, tho. Maybe look at a Ukulele instead if you commute.
Actually, to butt in here, the system of base-twelve actually comes in really handy (pardon the pun) within the construction industry. I think it's one of the main reasons that metrics not caught on in America.
See, with a base twelve system, you have the following divisions available to you instantly: 1/12, 1/6, 1/3, 1/2, 1/4. Note how you get both an easy 1/3 and a easy 1/2-1/4 combo outta there.
With a base ten system, you only get 1/5, 1/10, and 1/2- with no simple 1/3.
This is more important than you might figure at first; let's say you've got a wall, and it's 4 units wide, and you want to devide that wall into three equal spaces- if it's 4 feet, that's 48 inches, which devides into 16" per third; but if it's 4 meters, that's 1.3333 meters per division.
Also, due to the fractional nature of the imperal system, small measurments are easy to figure out. For example, half of 5/8 is also half of 10/16, which comes out to 5/16. Half of 0.625 isn't as simple.
With more complex problems, the numbers get harder. And seeing that within most construction you're deviding things into 1/2, 1/4, and 1/3rds all the time, you can see why people wouldn't wanna change.
One of my old bosses, an experanced Architect who only hand-drafted his whole life, could add, subtract, devide, and multiply complex imperical measurements in his head before you could even reach for your calculator, because he had learned the above tricks unitl they were like well-worn grooves in his brain.
Also, as someone who framed houses to pay for Architecture school, while contractors and carpenders are not dumb, it's not like they are gonna care about base-ten math being more 'efficent' or something, they just want to get the job done, and are going to use the simple way to do that, for they've got bigger fish to fry.
OK, so the OS is somewhat-capable; however I don't see any CAD apps being 'XP Tablet PC Edition' certified anytime soon. By making it have to run something different, they greatly limit the market. That's my point, if it was just a standard power-laptop (not an ultra-portable) with a Wacom flatscreen, I think it would totally sell, even if it was another thousand or two. Instead we get someone's idea of a solution looking for a problem, and not doing so hot in the market. I want a laptop I can draw on. That's all man!
And I know for a fact that there are many other design professionals like me that would eat that stuff up! Think, drawing live in front of a client; heck with the new parametric softwares out there, you could be making broad changes on the fly during the meeting, hacking out a house in 3D. Oh wait, you wanted two bedrooms? No problem! Wait.. move this bedroom over some? How this... Now look at that nice view of the lake from the Kitchen! Oh, you wanted the kitchen to be Oak? How's this? Shade lighter?
And a P-III M isn't gonna do the heavy lifting most computer-savvy designers need. Next-gen CAD systems, like Catia, Revit, Inventor, et all, are parametric beasts built upon relational databases that drink up Ram like you wouldn't beleve. My two gigs of Ram on my P4 machine here is *just enough* to make things snappy. Running the same projects on a P-III 933 Dual w/half a gig of Ram was sometimes like AutoCAD on 386- tell it to do something, and then go get coffee, for it's gonna take it five to ten minutes to finish...:)
As an Architect, who has had the chance to play with a Wacom flatscreen tablet at trade shows (the tech that most tablets use), I can attest to the fact that it's not that people don't want tablets. However I disagree with the 'big PDA' reasoning.
I would love one, and most people I know in the construction/design industry would too. And I don't care about handwritting recon, for I'd just jot down notes in the feild, then retype them anyways later. The *real* issue is that the bright minds in Redmond decided that tablet PC's shouldn't even have the power of a simular-sized & weighted laptop, but instead should be a very expensive electronic legal pad/sketchbook based on a modded version of WinCE & sub-par processors. Every time I see the specs for a tablet PC, my heart sinks, for if it only had a decent processor and decent memory (i.e. the same as any damn modern laptop) so that it could run Windows 2K/Linux and CAD software (or was made by apple and had at least a G4 in it) I know I would have bit a long time ago...
What the hell do you expect after over two generations worth of modern advertising and marketing?
You can't sell someone something they don't really need unless you can convince them otherwise.
And here in American, where you and I grew up, we've been bombarded since birth, and our parents before that, bombarded our entire lives to think that we're all rock stars, that we all deserve everything we want, that happiness is easy, that hard work is something to be avoided, and that to be overly passionate about anything is bad.
If we are made to think we're rock stars, we'll think we need that new SUV. If we are made to think we deserve everything we want, we'll not think twice before buying something we don't need or something that's not good for us. If we are made to think that happiness is easy, then we'll swallow the line that we can buy something to make us happy. If we are made to think that hard work is to be avoided, we'll be more likely to buy something to try to do work for us, or avoid work and buy toys instead. If we are made to think that caring about something is bad, then we'll be much more likely to buy whatever they are trying to sell us, rather than keeping what we've got or making stuff ourselves.
It's not a conspiracy, it's not 'The Man', its simply the caustic effect of 40+ years of trying to convince people to buy things they don't really need.
America: Nation of crybabies, Land of Veruca Salts.
"You don't need the Bullet when you got the Ballot, Ya dig"
Chocolate City, by George Clinton & P-Funk.
A song all about the fact that, when the song was written, there were more African-American voters in Washington D.C. than there were White voters, and if they could get organized they could vote themselves into positions of power to help fix the inner-city problems & help curb Racisum. As opposed to getting violent and only adding to the number of problems.
Mandrake Linux is extremely easy to use. I installed 8.2 (bought the box at CompUSA) and I was not only to set up my own computer as a dual-boot, but also was able to take an old computer and set up a home file & printer server using Samba. And I'd never touched Linux before, and only had some Windows NT experance (mostly installing and setting up *very* simple peer-to-peer/printer sharing networks). Now with 9.2 things are even easyer, way easyer, and other than having to learn linux 'quirks' vs. Windows 'quirks' I can't see any difference in usablity and management, other than a loaner laptop I've got won't 'sleep' properly. That's it.
Also I'm a member of the Mandrake Club, so yes, my money does go to paying for the engineering of a 'Free Software System' rather than boxes, seats, or user licences.
Rollin' Rollin' Rollin' Keep the stock price swollen, Keep them lawsuits rollin', SCOhide!
Ignorance and Hubris together, Hell bent for treasure, Wishin' IBM was on my side. All the things I'm missin, Source code, money and lawsuit dissmissin', Are waitin at the end of my ride.
Move em' on, Head em' up, Move em' on,SCOhide! Cut em' out, Paste em' in, Greek em' out, Show em' off, SCOhide!
Keep movin', movin', movin' Though their dissaprovin', Keep them Unix users groanin', SCOhide!
Don't try to understand them, Just Subpoena, sue and charge em', Soon we'll be livin' high and wide. My heart's calculatin', My new Rolls Royce will be waitin', Be waitin' at the end of my ride.
Move em' on, Sue em' up, Move em' on, SCOhide! Cut em' out, Paste em' in, Greek em' out, Show em' off, SCOhide!
Move em' on, Sue em' up, Move em' on, SCOhide! Drown em' out, Subpoena em' in, Cash em' out, Sue em' ALLLLLLL!!!, SCOhide!
Well, I think you're the one who doesn't know what you are talking about;
To object:
1. The Bank WILL change a lot over the course of it's life. It's not 'static'. Don't be so myopic in your vision. People will be changing 'my' bank in the future- new tenants will move in next door and change the building, the bank will change it's security systems, the roof will get re-done, maybe the building will get renovated and added on to. The building will be changing every six months, and sometimes in ways that will effect my design. HOWEVER I am still responsible for MY PORTION of the work. That's life in the real world. The Bank's owners are responsible for the BUILIDING. I am responsible for the DESIGN. Yes, their actions can affect my design and I can get sued over it. It happens all the time. That's why most Architects I know won't do Condos anymore; the condo owner's association sues the pants off of the architect the moment the roof leaks even tho' the architect had nothing to do with the problem. That's life. You try to prove that the roofers were the problem (if that's the case) or you pay and move on if it was your fault.
2. What's your point with the '1000 years ago' point? I don't understand what you are trying to say.
3. I disagree that other engineering disciplines know EXCACTLY how their product will be used. They don't. But they do know that they have to MEET CERTIAN REQUREMENTS in both safety and performance. Yes, Ford knows that their cars will be used as cars; but they have no idea how I will modify and change their car once I own it. and if I change it, and it kills someone because of my change- well that's my fault. Or if I use the car in a way that wasn't intended, like living out my Dukes of Hazzard fantasies- remember that I can try to sue Ford, but it's pretty obvious that Ford is say that the car is safe UNDER CERTIAN CONDIDTIONS and not ALL CONDITIONS. The courts mostly understand this too.
4. 'When we design and build a system it has to do X many things, work in an environment that we have no control over, interact with components we don't have control over, may be used in ways we have no control over and is still expected to work.' ---- Welcome to real life, kid.
5. 'Software is a FAR more complex art than any other form of engineering.' --- this is just sad, and shows your complete ignorance of anything outside of software development. You really need to look beyond yourself, and see that there is more to the world than your invisible cathedrals of code, man.
Look, I'm just saying that if/when a product doesn't perform as it is advertised as that I should at the very least be able to return it and get my money back. ANY OTHER THING IN THIS WORLD that would be the case. I buy a CD and it doesn't play- I go get my money back. I buy a tire for my car and it blows out in thirty days- I get my money back. Why is software so different?
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Actually, you can still buy one of their best, the wonderful video they made.
click here
Sometimes your local wierd video shop will have this for rent, too.
Last year I was trying to dig up more info on them, just to see what happened to 'em, and only found the main guy's home page, who's now some kind of big-wig Video guy running a company serving Ad firms or something. Full circle, huh?
You can say that again. The Emergency Broadcast Network were doing it over ten years ago, and AFAIK were the first to tie a MIDI control to Video. If you've never seen their stuff, I highly recommend it. Way ahead of thier time. I think you can still buy their video on Amazon.
You can see some of thier earlier clips here.
Not as good as their video, but still great for 1991(!)
I'm not raggin' on Protools, it's just that it's not as simple a problem as you make it out to be. PTFree will *only* run on Windows 98, and nothing else. So it's not like everyone using Windows can just download PTFree and run with it, for most people are on W2k or XP now. Like me, I have to use W2K and Linux for work because of the software I use. I don't know about running the Mac version in OS X, if it's possible or not, but it's been my experance on my wife's machine that running 'classic' apps in OS X isn't really that great.
So I'm just saying that your simple 'just use PTFree' doesn't fly for a lot of people.
Pro Tools Free ain't free no more. At least, the only version that's still free is the one that only works on Windows 98 & Mac OS 9. To get the latest & best you got to buy the protool hardware...
"If Macs have sufficiently high quality A/D conversion for this purpose, then you should be able to use any recording software, and I believe there's plenty of it."
Plenty of it that costs way more than $50 that does the same thing. The closest thing I can find that does decent Amp-modeling and multi-track recording is at least over $100, if not closer to $200 or more. Unless you know of a $50 music recording application that does the same stuff...
Throw in the fact that it comes with plenty of other neat, helpful applications too, and the whole ilife pack starts to look like a ton of fun...
*every* time an artcle is posted about Linux/BSD vs. Windows/OS X usability, someone chimes in that 'if only the open source community could pick one developement platform, and limit user choice, then developers could focus on one platform, everything would work well, things would be easy, new users and business would love it, birds would sing, and MicroSoft would be overthrown'.
Then that guy gets modded up to +5.
Now, someone's making a serous effort to do *exactly that* and everyone's bitching about leaving out KDE and how it limits user choice, forces everyone to work on one platform, and how this will make things harder; when it appears that it has a large part to do with the licencing of QT vs. Gnome, and nothing about KDE or Gnome being 'better'.
Sheesh. And I'm sitting here posting about it. I can't think of what's sadder!
Sure, that sounds like a great idea!
And I'm the wallet inspector. You better mail me your wallet, and I'll make certain it's legal.
RFID tags? In the neck? WTF?
Why didn't anyone tell me about this before I went and had this damn barcode tattooed onto my forehead?!?
Always outdated. Damn. Now I'm not gonna be 'cool'.
You're dead-on that, closed source or no, hitching your future to a particular bit of software is a gamble of sorts.
But at least with the open source option your data isn't tied up in a 'dead' and closed format, a dead-end. When you're talking about *years* of documents, drawings, pictures, and more, that becomes the 'millstone' and the software that was used doesn't matter so much.
Also more than once I've seen a great little bit of commercial software go onto the chopping block for reasons that had nothing to do with it's ability or use, but to do with business things that have nothing to do with the users. At least with open source if there are a handful of people using the software out there, I still have options, rather than being stuck again in a 'dead end'.
This has always happened. Even before the internet. The internet, just like with all things, just makes it possible to happen faster and at a larger scale. That's it. period. To beleve that things were better before the internet is to fail to the same fallicy of which you state, running with blinders on so you don't have to think and feel about things by yourself.
Oh yeah, but they were dead-on about those Ferrets. Yup. Bound to get loose, breed like crazy, and cause untold disaster. Yup. They would, uhhh, eat the freeways. or something.
It's not like the Fish and Game department is really an example of a shining beacon of intelligence. There are more Ferret owners in California than in most places, even though they are illegal here. Heck Petco has a whole isle devoted to the little bastards. You can get food, toys, cages, medicine... oh but you can't own a Ferret. It's like being in a Head shop amougst the bongs.
Anyways, if 'untold disaster' would have happened if they got loose, it would have happened by now, yet Ferrets are still illegal. Even people trying to overturn the law try every year and fail every year. Just means that they are smuggled into the state, sometimes treated inhumanely, encourages improper breeding (ala puppyfarming), have a hard time getting to a vet, and just makes the Ferrets, the state, and the Ferret owners more misrable because a state agency is unable to admin it's completely wrong.
Not like Drugs, Tho. Those just ain't in California, for it's illegal. Cause untold disaster. Yup.
I wouldn't be doing as well right now if I hadn't had got to college. So I must be dieing too...
oh wait...
Hello, again Apple's in the lead here. First Consumer-grade computer with a full unix under the hood, an bone-simple UI over the top, and 64-bits behind it all... This is something no one else is doing right now, but will be what everyone's doing five years from now, save MicroSoft (no unix-core for them, for they will just take there ball home if no one wants to play by thier rules).
What's your point again?
Oh heck yeah. Here in San Francisco we've got a paper ballot system, and a rather questionable Electorial office. Last time there was a big measure on the ballot to make a local goverment-owned power company, and give PG & E the boot, the vote was very close but PG & E won after spending a ton of money on advertising.
Oh, and those ballot boxes they found floating in the bay I'm sure helped too. they 'blew of a dock', supposedely after the votes had been counted. Uhh yeah... that's it...
No it's not. Buy a Casio with full sized keys. Learning to play any instrament is a long but very fun and rewarding thing to do.
:)
And Beethoven?!? How many little kids you see sit down and plunk out 'Fur Elise' over and over? Beethoven ain't so hard. Now maybe if you're talking Bartok, I could understand...
My point is that rather than just being a consumer of culture, start participating in it, and find out that it's as much fun to make the music as it is to listen to the music, even if both have a certain time and place where best applied. Actually, in the end, you'll wind up with a much larger apprecation for music in general, which will lead you to not being suckered into buying $20 cd's by the latest generic Radio band.
Even Better yet: $7.99 used CD's at your local indy music store. Or $10 CD's that you buy off a indy band's website directly. Or $1 vynil at the thrift store (tons of great old country/lounge/jazz/weird stuff)
But the Best: Start makin' your own damn music. Serously. It's tons of fun. You can get a guitar for $100 bucks, learn some Beatles tunes, and have way more fun in the long run than that $100 Beatles box set. Then make up your own stupid songs, pretend you're a rock star, and have a total blast in your Den.
little hard to play guitar while driving, tho. Maybe look at a Ukulele instead if you commute.
Actually, to butt in here, the system of base-twelve actually comes in really handy (pardon the pun) within the construction industry. I think it's one of the main reasons that metrics not caught on in America.
See, with a base twelve system, you have the following divisions available to you instantly: 1/12, 1/6, 1/3, 1/2, 1/4. Note how you get both an easy 1/3 and a easy 1/2-1/4 combo outta there.
With a base ten system, you only get 1/5, 1/10, and 1/2- with no simple 1/3.
This is more important than you might figure at first; let's say you've got a wall, and it's 4 units wide, and you want to devide that wall into three equal spaces- if it's 4 feet, that's 48 inches, which devides into 16" per third; but if it's 4 meters, that's 1.3333 meters per division.
Also, due to the fractional nature of the imperal system, small measurments are easy to figure out. For example, half of 5/8 is also half of 10/16, which comes out to 5/16. Half of 0.625 isn't as simple.
With more complex problems, the numbers get harder. And seeing that within most construction you're deviding things into 1/2, 1/4, and 1/3rds all the time, you can see why people wouldn't wanna change.
One of my old bosses, an experanced Architect who only hand-drafted his whole life, could add, subtract, devide, and multiply complex imperical measurements in his head before you could even reach for your calculator, because he had learned the above tricks unitl they were like well-worn grooves in his brain.
Also, as someone who framed houses to pay for Architecture school, while contractors and carpenders are not dumb, it's not like they are gonna care about base-ten math being more 'efficent' or something, they just want to get the job done, and are going to use the simple way to do that, for they've got bigger fish to fry.
That's a hard thing to give up!
"Its far easier to blame the user than to admit your idea was a bust."
And this is different from the rest of the computer industry, and only pertains to 'security people' how?
Oh heck. Looks like my parents then are gonna own my copyright... and jsut when I thought I was outta the house, and doing well on my own!
My Wife's gonna be upset about this.
OK, so the OS is somewhat-capable; however I don't see any CAD apps being 'XP Tablet PC Edition' certified anytime soon. By making it have to run something different, they greatly limit the market. That's my point, if it was just a standard power-laptop (not an ultra-portable) with a Wacom flatscreen, I think it would totally sell, even if it was another thousand or two. Instead we get someone's idea of a solution looking for a problem, and not doing so hot in the market. I want a laptop I can draw on. That's all man!
:)
And I know for a fact that there are many other design professionals like me that would eat that stuff up! Think, drawing live in front of a client; heck with the new parametric softwares out there, you could be making broad changes on the fly during the meeting, hacking out a house in 3D. Oh wait, you wanted two bedrooms? No problem! Wait.. move this bedroom over some? How this... Now look at that nice view of the lake from the Kitchen! Oh, you wanted the kitchen to be Oak? How's this? Shade lighter?
And a P-III M isn't gonna do the heavy lifting most computer-savvy designers need. Next-gen CAD systems, like Catia, Revit, Inventor, et all, are parametric beasts built upon relational databases that drink up Ram like you wouldn't beleve. My two gigs of Ram on my P4 machine here is *just enough* to make things snappy. Running the same projects on a P-III 933 Dual w/half a gig of Ram was sometimes like AutoCAD on 386- tell it to do something, and then go get coffee, for it's gonna take it five to ten minutes to finish...
As an Architect, who has had the chance to play with a Wacom flatscreen tablet at trade shows (the tech that most tablets use), I can attest to the fact that it's not that people don't want tablets. However I disagree with the 'big PDA' reasoning.
I would love one, and most people I know in the construction/design industry would too. And I don't care about handwritting recon, for I'd just jot down notes in the feild, then retype them anyways later. The *real* issue is that the bright minds in Redmond decided that tablet PC's shouldn't even have the power of a simular-sized & weighted laptop, but instead should be a very expensive electronic legal pad/sketchbook based on a modded version of WinCE & sub-par processors. Every time I see the specs for a tablet PC, my heart sinks, for if it only had a decent processor and decent memory (i.e. the same as any damn modern laptop) so that it could run Windows 2K/Linux and CAD software (or was made by apple and had at least a G4 in it) I know I would have bit a long time ago...
What the hell do you expect after over two generations worth of modern advertising and marketing?
You can't sell someone something they don't really need unless you can convince them otherwise.
And here in American, where you and I grew up, we've been bombarded since birth, and our parents before that, bombarded our entire lives to think that we're all rock stars, that we all deserve everything we want, that happiness is easy, that hard work is something to be avoided, and that to be overly passionate about anything is bad.
If we are made to think we're rock stars, we'll think we need that new SUV.
If we are made to think we deserve everything we want, we'll not think twice before buying something we don't need or something that's not good for us.
If we are made to think that happiness is easy, then we'll swallow the line that we can buy something to make us happy.
If we are made to think that hard work is to be avoided, we'll be more likely to buy something to try to do work for us, or avoid work and buy toys instead.
If we are made to think that caring about something is bad, then we'll be much more likely to buy whatever they are trying to sell us, rather than keeping what we've got or making stuff ourselves.
It's not a conspiracy, it's not 'The Man', its simply the caustic effect of 40+ years of trying to convince people to buy things they don't really need.
America: Nation of crybabies, Land of Veruca Salts.
"You don't need the Bullet when you got the Ballot, Ya dig"
Chocolate City, by George Clinton & P-Funk.
A song all about the fact that, when the song was written, there were more African-American voters in Washington D.C. than there were White voters, and if they could get organized they could vote themselves into positions of power to help fix the inner-city problems & help curb Racisum. As opposed to getting violent and only adding to the number of problems.
Another problem: it's already been done. Mostly.
Mandrake Linux is extremely easy to use. I installed 8.2 (bought the box at CompUSA) and I was not only to set up my own computer as a dual-boot, but also was able to take an old computer and set up a home file & printer server using Samba. And I'd never touched Linux before, and only had some Windows NT experance (mostly installing and setting up *very* simple peer-to-peer/printer sharing networks). Now with 9.2 things are even easyer, way easyer, and other than having to learn linux 'quirks' vs. Windows 'quirks' I can't see any difference in usablity and management, other than a loaner laptop I've got won't 'sleep' properly. That's it.
Also I'm a member of the Mandrake Club, so yes, my money does go to paying for the engineering of a 'Free Software System' rather than boxes, seats, or user licences.
Rollin', Rolling', Rollin',
Rollin', Rolling', Rollin',
Rollin', Rolling', Rollin',
SCOhide!
Rollin' Rollin' Rollin'
Keep the stock price swollen,
Keep them lawsuits rollin',
SCOhide!
Ignorance and Hubris together, Hell bent for treasure, Wishin' IBM was on my side.
All the things I'm missin, Source code, money and lawsuit dissmissin', Are waitin at the end of my ride.
Move em' on, Head em' up, Move em' on,SCOhide!
Cut em' out, Paste em' in, Greek em' out, Show em' off, SCOhide!
Keep movin', movin', movin'
Though their dissaprovin', Keep them Unix users groanin', SCOhide!
Don't try to understand them, Just Subpoena, sue and charge em', Soon we'll be livin' high and wide. My heart's calculatin', My new Rolls Royce will be waitin', Be waitin' at the end of my ride.
Move em' on, Sue em' up, Move em' on, SCOhide!
Cut em' out, Paste em' in, Greek em' out, Show em' off, SCOhide!
Move em' on, Sue em' up, Move em' on, SCOhide!
Drown em' out, Subpoena em' in, Cash em' out, Sue em' ALLLLLLL!!!, SCOhide!
Rollin', Rolling', Rollin', Rollin', Rolling', Rollin', SCOhide!
SCOhide!
Well, I think you're the one who doesn't know what you are talking about;
To object:
1. The Bank WILL change a lot over the course of it's life. It's not 'static'. Don't be so myopic in your vision. People will be changing 'my' bank in the future- new tenants will move in next door and change the building, the bank will change it's security systems, the roof will get re-done, maybe the building will get renovated and added on to. The building will be changing every six months, and sometimes in ways that will effect my design. HOWEVER I am still responsible for MY PORTION of the work. That's life in the real world. The Bank's owners are responsible for the BUILIDING. I am responsible for the DESIGN. Yes, their actions can affect my design and I can get sued over it. It happens all the time. That's why most Architects I know won't do Condos anymore; the condo owner's association sues the pants off of the architect the moment the roof leaks even tho' the architect had nothing to do with the problem. That's life. You try to prove that the roofers were the problem (if that's the case) or you pay and move on if it was your fault.
2. What's your point with the '1000 years ago' point? I don't understand what you are trying to say.
3. I disagree that other engineering disciplines know EXCACTLY how their product will be used. They don't. But they do know that they have to MEET CERTIAN REQUREMENTS in both safety and performance. Yes, Ford knows that their cars will be used as cars; but they have no idea how I will modify and change their car once I own it. and if I change it, and it kills someone because of my change- well that's my fault. Or if I use the car in a way that wasn't intended, like living out my Dukes of Hazzard fantasies- remember that I can try to sue Ford, but it's pretty obvious that Ford is say that the car is safe UNDER CERTIAN CONDIDTIONS and not ALL CONDITIONS. The courts mostly understand this too.
4. 'When we design and build a system it has to do X many things, work in an environment that we have no control over, interact with components we don't have control over, may be used in ways we have no control over and is still expected to work.' ---- Welcome to real life, kid.
5. 'Software is a FAR more complex art than any other form of engineering.' --- this is just sad, and shows your complete ignorance of anything outside of software development. You really need to look beyond yourself, and see that there is more to the world than your invisible cathedrals of code, man.
Look, I'm just saying that if/when a product doesn't perform as it is advertised as that I should at the very least be able to return it and get my money back. ANY OTHER THING IN THIS WORLD that would be the case. I buy a CD and it doesn't play- I go get my money back. I buy a tire for my car and it blows out in thirty days- I get my money back. Why is software so different?
Jeffrey McGrew