1- the page was dated. I believe it said Neuroticia.net ($date1-$date2) RIP or somesuch. I don't know. I put something else up instead which is even less likely to be accurate HTML since it's text with "br" tags in it.
2- It reveals that you caught me at a moment where I was quick and easy to anger and would likely have wanted to poke your eyes out if you came near me IRL. =] I feel better now as I've had a good espresso (as opposed to the last one that seemed to elicit screaming fits and jitters. Now all I need is a few good nights sleep.
Oh. The reason there is still anything up at neuroticia.net is because I retain the domain for email purposes (or at least I have in the past. I have yet to move it over) and got tired of people emailing me with "Your site is down." as we know happens to people who don't have something on their index page after several years of maintaining an active website. I'm allowed.
*Sigh* My first (and only) response should have been:
"Dear Sir or Madam: Based on your 3-year-old abandoned webpage that says you no longer want to update the site, we have decided that you have absolutely no knowledge of the merits of clean code or of the tools that exist to ensure code is clean.
The reason we have hunted down this 3-year-old-website is because you have implied that you are not in the least surprised that people still have broken HTML.
While we acknowledge that the majority of websites out there these days are coded by a million monkeys on typewriters, we believe that you--three years ago--should have known enough to write code that not only a.) worked correctly on the computers of your target-audience (who at that time was mostly your family/friends who still used AOL) but b.) looks pretty, c.) fits standards that were created after you abandoned the idea of learning HTML, and d.) turns cartwheels and walks the dog.
The reason we say you should have possessed this knowledge is that TODAY you claim to be (in your own words) a "quasi geek", and we believe that every "quasi geek" possesses full and absolute knowledge of at least one DTD from birth.
Good point.;) But actually, the DTD that *insert cretin's name here* chose for my 3-plus-year-old "I don't care about the damned internet anymore and refuse to update again" page was the incorrect one, as well. Not that I claim it would have done any better had the right DTD been chosen, seeing as by that point I was using a mish-mash of HTMLs 3&4 with a touch of broken CSS on the side.
Doesn't unsolicited critique of someones ancient and abandoned markup fall into the same category of critique of their fourth grade book report's grammar?
Number one- Was I identifying with the geek community when I was 19? No. I'm still only saying I'm a quasi-geek, quite possibly because the "geek elite" such as thyself (Who undoubtably has perfect HTML) would pounce upon me and claim I'm not up to par.
Number two- google is geeky correct? And how about slashdot.org? Then there's, of course, php.net,mysql.com, and quite a few others. In fact, pretty much every page I tested came up with multiple errors, including http://www.w3.org
And while it's longer and doesn't have QUITE the number of errors as my 19-year-old-girl page, wouldn't you say that Linus should at least be closer to your standards of geeky perfection?
In short, get the bug out of your butt and find more important things to do than critiquing HTML that is 3 years old at this point. (More, actually, because at that point I didn't even feel like writing HTML and just edited the text that was in the last index page.)
Oh. One final thing. In my "I am not a geek" years just prior to going downhill at 19 and posting that abomination of a website, I did actually make intense use of syntax-checking tools on the web. I just didn't really feel like doing it for the last little while because I became quite jaded on the entire concept of HTML. I think that everyone has, with the exception of you, Your Geekiness.
Oh, one final thing- you're never going to a.) sound intelligent while attacking someone personally or b.) get anything short of a rabid-frothing at the mouth response from anyone whilst attacking them personally.
Particularly when the post you were responding to was only half-serious.
Er. I think it's safe to say that the majority of pages on the internet have more errors than the page-that-I-abandoned-when-I-was-19-and-that-had-b een-languishing-for-months-prior.
I also think it's safer to say that a page that is targetting people of an unknown browser type in an anal retentive geek community needs to be more strict about their HTML than a 19 year old girl who is writing stupid things for a variety of friends most of who at that point were still on AOL or using a MS-variant browser.
Safe bet, eh?
Diagnostics tools are not used because most people in most situations simply do not care. If it displays correctly in their browser, they're happy as pigs in a puddle until someone writes to yell that they forgot a closing </html> tag.
The point isn't that they're not allowed in. It's that Apple is being an active censor, in some cases to their biggest advocates. They're thumbing their nose at people.
Would YOU want to promote Apple if Apple shot your site down as a rumormill after years of devoting yourself to promoting the OS, the hardware, the brand, the community, etc.?
Apple plays this game of give and take all the time, chasing away their loyal fans with stupidity to rival that of Microsoft... Then attempting to lure in new markets as it cedes the old for no good reason.
And why is it that you assume my method was horrible? It's merely an exhibition that "What you are trying to do is not scary, there are a million more scary things in the world, things you do day to day." I was actually being very patient while I did what I described above. While it was unsuccessful, I have been successful with the methodology before. She was afraid of the keyboard, and I gently reminded her that she used a typewriter already and that it was similar. She was still afraid of it, so I put the typewriter next to it and asked her to show me what was different, and then explained each difference.
The reason? Because if I accidentally highlight a piece of text after I already highlighted and copied a piece of text, I don't want to have to go back and re-do it. Because I regularly highlight text for reasons other than copying and pasting, and I don't constantly want to have to guess what the computer's twisted little mind thinks I'm going to do.
And as for patronising, you're assuming things. Patronising is saying "You're so smart if you understand this." I was not patronising.
Hm. Because you buy the wrong alarmclock, and have chosen the wrong drake-os-drake? =]
Didn't you realize before you bought your alarmclock that it was infested with button-bugs? They do sell alarmclocks where there are two buttons, clearly labled in glow-in-the-dark-red.
And Linux isn't designed to be user-friendly. It's designed to be geek-friendly, which means have enough stuff to keep a geek busy learning, and be powerful enough to satisfy the geek's every whim.
*laughs* My grandmother would touch it really gently, push it VERY slowly whilst staring at it and moving her eyes back and forth to the monitor, roll it off the mousepad, roll it until it bumped a wall, pick it up, SLAM it down, and repeat. After she finally located the icon on the screen and went to click it she'd SMASH the button and then her hand would fly up and away nearly smacking me in the head. =]
Nah. I'm terribly patient, as could be witnessed by someone watching me teach my 80-something year old grandmother how to use a mouse. "No Gram, you keep you hand on it after you click. Click a little more gently than that, gram. It's sensitive." And not laughing at her when she called the mouse a 'rat' and asked why she had to play with its but to get things to happen... Or when she called the monitor a tv. She was an interested and active learner, asking questions and willing to experiment/generalise what she was learning.
My mother is the equivilent of a child throwing a temper tantrum, clapping their hands over their ears and singing "I don't heeeeeaaaar you." And she is the majority. She is capable of learning, but only when she doesn't know she's learning. If she asks me "How do you do this?" and I tell her, she promptly forgets it. If I ask her to repeat what I just said I get a response like "Oh, some computer thing."
I realize and respect that computers are new to her. I admire her for being willing to touch them and play with them. I DO NOT like it when she plays dumb. I do NOT like it when I know she's capable of learning something but lets her own insecurity get in the way.
On the plus side, since I made the "List of things that will destroy the computer" for her, she's a bit more willing to experiment. "Do not drop it off a cliff, do not put it in the bathtub, do not set it on fire or blow it up. Do not stick magnets to the side. Do not put a coffee cup in the CD-R drive."
The other day she reinstalled her printer all on her own without my even telling her she had to go to the start menu. I was very proud... She still doesn't remember how to copy and paste, though. I don't think she ever will.
*laughs* I think the only interface that has that kind of button is a porno site. =] And even THEN you need to jump through the hoops of proving you're an adult.
I'm not foolish. I've told her the steps enough times, and she understands the steps. She knows that right-clicking brings up a menu. She does it all the time. She knows that highlighting something means dragging the mouse over it.. She even knows how to drag the mouse. She is able to read the menus that drop down... If there was any task on that list that she was unable to complete individually when given the vague instructions "highlight text" "right click choose an option from the list" then I'd have more patience.
Someone who can perform each of the tasks involved without even thinking, but is unable to string them together has something wrong with them either attitude-wise or mentally.
"I just don't understand computer stuff" is NOT an excuse. I understand it's complex and annoying and hard to grasp, but when you are GIVEN the steps and you UNDERSTAND the steps, what's preventing you from remembering them?
Hm. Recompiling apache with mod_perl takes what? fewer than 5 minutes of hands-on time? =] Can't get much more simple than that.
I find command-line interfaces supplemented by man pages to be the most intuitive, easy to learn interface possible... Probably because you only need to learn each component once, and then it interacts with all the other components of the OS to produce the desired effect. GUI's make things needlessly complex in their attempt at user-friendliness.
But... Seriously. Those things you speak of are geek things. Geeks don't need simplicity.;)
Actually I was first put in front of a computer at the tender young age of 15, and recieved no official instruction in it other than watching briefly as someone moved the mouse. I reached out, grabbed it, and after a failed attempt or three was able to use it successfully. I learned DOS without a manual... Of course I'm probably exceptional. Foo. I also could read Latin more or less without ever learning any of it, simply because I was a habitual dictionary-reader and knew more or less by instinct what the parts of the words meant, and I could relate the Latin I didn't know to the English I did. Ok I'm odd.
Small tag is illegal because of trolls. As it should be.
And, seeing as my mother can't figure out that clicking "update" on the liveupdate popup from Norton will update her antivirus and that it's a good thing, I guess I should be happy that she can't download.:p
Although she does seem to keep on top of things like the teddy bear virus.
All users are idiots until they prove otherwise... To assume otherwise would be foolish, as most people cannot troubleshoot or learn to use the simplest thing.
I'm not saying that interfaces aren't needlessly obtuse. They are. They could stand a LOT of improvement. (Read: Microsoft's habit of scattering settings to kingdom come, and OS X's new "Help system" with the navigation buttons at the bloody bottom)
I'm merely saying that if someone can't find their way around an obtuse interface, then chances are they're not going to find their way around a well-thought out one. Most people are so accustomed to being intimidated by anything electronic that they freak out before they even see if they CAN do it. And WITHOUT CHECKING, they *still* complain about how the interface is too complex.
Young people find computers to be intuitive, older people do not. Why? Because for the most part older people have a closed mindset. They grew up in an era when only programmers touched computers. Their conclusions? "Oh, doing that takes a computer science degree." My response? "No it bloody doesn't. You KNOW what 'download' means, doesn't it follow reason that in order to complete the task of downloading the file, you click 'download'?!"
That's what pisses me off about "users". They can have a 5-page instruction manual on a program that covers everything and they still prefer to ask you because it's "computery" and "complex". Even if "getting their hands dirty" took 5 minutes they'd still prefer not to.
Instead they choose to blame the interface designers and manual writers for making things needlessly complex.
It's a wonder the world's shoes aren't all velcro.
I have plenty of respect for my mother when she deserves it, but low tolerance for willful stupidity.
Besides which, she was able to recognize it as a useful excercise, and after repeating it a few times she finally did learn how to copy-paste. It served as a mnemonic trick for her.
Spelling and grammar IS important, when something such as "moot" is spelled "mute" it's not even a spelling issue. They're using the wrong word. It's like someone calling the entire chassis/everything in the chassis sitting next to their desk "the cpu". They'll say "The CPU is broken". You'll assume that it's blown and needs to be replaced, order a new one, and then discover that it was unplugged. (Well, ok so you'd troubleshoot first, but that's not the point)
Spelling something wrong on occasion is unavoidable, yes. Critique for spelling errors is best reserved to email or other forms of private communcation, yes. But getting pissed off because someone is tired of hearing people misuse a word all the time is just as insane.
The world is divided into two categories. Those who "get it" and those who do not. Those who "get it" understand that everything has a pattern and all they have to do is play with the gadget and read the manual/documentation and understanding will come. Those who do not get it are akin to those who call us over to set the time on their VCR without even checking to see if they could do it themselves. Those who ask us 200 times how to copy/paste and cannot remember simply because their mindset is that computers are scary complex things that do not make sense.
These people are not going to be helped by simplification. These people are not going to be helped by hand-holding.
There needs to be some sort of "mind building" curriculum for people who are afraid of electronics. I believe that people who are told a 3-step process (such as copy-paste) 200 times and STILL cannot remember are mentally defective and in need of rehabilitive therapy.
Think about it. If someone is told even 10 times that "If you push the doorbell a bell will ring" and cannot remember it, you'll assume they are brain damaged and treat them as such.
That's how I've come to treat my mother when she asks me how to copy and paste. Finally I took her to the local drugstore and made her copy a piece of paper. I brought her home and had her paste it onto another piece of paper. I then had her describe the steps she had to take to me by writing them down. If she skipped something like "Put the money into the machine" or "select number of copies" then I'd get confused and make her go back to the beginning. Afterwards I brought her over to the computer and said "There are no settings. There is nothing to remember. You drag the mouse to highlight the text you want to copy. You press the right mouse button and choose "copy". You move to the new document and right-click and choose "paste" HOW is that more complex than what you just did with the copier over at the drugstore? HOW is that more complex than tying your shoes?"
She agreed, and then 10 minutes later called me over because she couldn't figure out how to copy/paste. She didn't even try.
Er. Do I want it to send me email? I get enough junk mail as it is. If it goes down I'll notice, since it is my primary workstation. I am notified about failing fans, though. In addition I'm notified when the CPU throttles itself down due to overheating, or due to a fan going slower than it should. It doesn't blink lights at me, but it does have really cool blue and red LED's on the front. Does that count?;)
And as for processor, how's a dualie athlon 1900+ with 2 80GB hard drives?
Ok, so I don't have the computer I just described.. I just get to play with it. But it did weigh in at less than the current G4's price-wise. Mine's a 900Duron that does absolutely nothing spectacular, but hey- I got what I paid for at $300 last fall.
Two thumbscrews, pull-out mobo tray with detachable front panel connectors. PCI/AGP slots with thumbscrews. Purdy gleaming aluminum and blue case lights. I vote for Lian Li. Although my crappy black "Future Case" suits me just fine.
I have to bunjee cord my mac's to my desk to prevent them from falling over due to their "convenient" handles.
*growl*
I know, I know. I'm going to get modded down for responding to flamebait. Hmph.
1- It's built into my hardware. My BIOS does it automatically. Some chips even come with overheat protection (P4, anybody?) so that if the mobo fails to recognize the overheating, or if the overheating happens too fast for the mobo to respond, then you still won't end up with a fried chip.
2- If you get what you pay for, shouldn't my mac be walking the dog, taking out the garbage, and giving me a massage every night? I should try to train it to do that. =]
Slashdot Mirror
1- the page was dated. I believe it said Neuroticia.net ($date1-$date2) RIP or somesuch. I don't know. I put something else up instead which is even less likely to be accurate HTML since it's text with "br" tags in it.
2- It reveals that you caught me at a moment where I was quick and easy to anger and would likely have wanted to poke your eyes out if you came near me IRL. =] I feel better now as I've had a good espresso (as opposed to the last one that seemed to elicit screaming fits and jitters. Now all I need is a few good nights sleep.
Oh. The reason there is still anything up at neuroticia.net is because I retain the domain for email purposes (or at least I have in the past. I have yet to move it over) and got tired of people emailing me with "Your site is down." as we know happens to people who don't have something on their index page after several years of maintaining an active website. I'm allowed.
Thus, in conclusion... "Yeah, and?"
-Sara
*Sigh* My first (and only) response should have been:
"Dear Sir or Madam:
Based on your 3-year-old abandoned webpage that says you no longer want to update the site, we have decided that you have absolutely no knowledge of the merits of clean code or of the tools that exist to ensure code is clean.
The reason we have hunted down this 3-year-old-website is because you have implied that you are not in the least surprised that people still have broken HTML.
While we acknowledge that the majority of websites out there these days are coded by a million monkeys on typewriters, we believe that you--three years ago--should have known enough to write code that not only a.) worked correctly on the computers of your target-audience (who at that time was mostly your family/friends who still used AOL) but b.) looks pretty, c.) fits standards that were created after you abandoned the idea of learning HTML, and d.) turns cartwheels and walks the dog.
The reason we say you should have possessed this knowledge is that TODAY you claim to be (in your own words) a "quasi geek", and we believe that every "quasi geek" possesses full and absolute knowledge of at least one DTD from birth.
Sincerely,
The HTML Police."
-Sara
Good point. ;) But actually, the DTD that *insert cretin's name here* chose for my 3-plus-year-old "I don't care about the damned internet anymore and refuse to update again" page was the incorrect one, as well. Not that I claim it would have done any better had the right DTD been chosen, seeing as by that point I was using a mish-mash of HTMLs 3&4 with a touch of broken CSS on the side.
Doesn't unsolicited critique of someones ancient and abandoned markup fall into the same category of critique of their fourth grade book report's grammar?
-Sara
Number one- Was I identifying with the geek community when I was 19? No. I'm still only saying I'm a quasi-geek, quite possibly because the "geek elite" such as thyself (Who undoubtably has perfect HTML) would pounce upon me and claim I'm not up to par.
Number two- google is geeky correct? And how about slashdot.org? Then there's, of course, php.net,mysql.com, and quite a few others. In fact, pretty much every page I tested came up with multiple errors, including http://www.w3.org
And while it's longer and doesn't have QUITE the number of errors as my 19-year-old-girl page, wouldn't you say that Linus should at least be closer to your standards of geeky perfection?
In short, get the bug out of your butt and find more important things to do than critiquing HTML that is 3 years old at this point. (More, actually, because at that point I didn't even feel like writing HTML and just edited the text that was in the last index page.)
Oh. One final thing. In my "I am not a geek" years just prior to going downhill at 19 and posting that abomination of a website, I did actually make intense use of syntax-checking tools on the web. I just didn't really feel like doing it for the last little while because I became quite jaded on the entire concept of HTML. I think that everyone has, with the exception of you, Your Geekiness.
Oh, one final thing- you're never going to a.) sound intelligent while attacking someone personally or b.) get anything short of a rabid-frothing at the mouth response from anyone whilst attacking them personally.
Particularly when the post you were responding to was only half-serious.
-Sara
Er. I think it's safe to say that the majority of pages on the internet have more errors than the page-that-I-abandoned-when-I-was-19-and-that-had-b een-languishing-for-months-prior.
I also think it's safer to say that a page that is targetting people of an unknown browser type in an anal retentive geek community needs to be more strict about their HTML than a 19 year old girl who is writing stupid things for a variety of friends most of who at that point were still on AOL or using a MS-variant browser.
Safe bet, eh?
Diagnostics tools are not used because most people in most situations simply do not care. If it displays correctly in their browser, they're happy as pigs in a puddle until someone writes to yell that they forgot a closing </html> tag.
-Sara
Interesting? People don't close tags, just like people don't close ports, zippers, or the door to the safe that my employer keeps the espresso in.
*buzz*
Looks like a simple icky HTML error. Tsk Tsk. They should be more careful.
-Sara
The point isn't that they're not allowed in. It's that Apple is being an active censor, in some cases to their biggest advocates. They're thumbing their nose at people.
Would YOU want to promote Apple if Apple shot your site down as a rumormill after years of devoting yourself to promoting the OS, the hardware, the brand, the community, etc.?
Apple plays this game of give and take all the time, chasing away their loyal fans with stupidity to rival that of Microsoft... Then attempting to lure in new markets as it cedes the old for no good reason.
-Sara
And why is it that you assume my method was horrible? It's merely an exhibition that "What you are trying to do is not scary, there are a million more scary things in the world, things you do day to day." I was actually being very patient while I did what I described above. While it was unsuccessful, I have been successful with the methodology before. She was afraid of the keyboard, and I gently reminded her that she used a typewriter already and that it was similar. She was still afraid of it, so I put the typewriter next to it and asked her to show me what was different, and then explained each difference.
:p
How does that merit physical violence?
-Sara
The reason? Because if I accidentally highlight a piece of text after I already highlighted and copied a piece of text, I don't want to have to go back and re-do it. Because I regularly highlight text for reasons other than copying and pasting, and I don't constantly want to have to guess what the computer's twisted little mind thinks I'm going to do.
And as for patronising, you're assuming things. Patronising is saying "You're so smart if you understand this." I was not patronising.
-Sara
Hm. Because you buy the wrong alarmclock, and have chosen the wrong drake-os-drake? =]
Didn't you realize before you bought your alarmclock that it was infested with button-bugs? They do sell alarmclocks where there are two buttons, clearly labled in glow-in-the-dark-red.
And Linux isn't designed to be user-friendly. It's designed to be geek-friendly, which means have enough stuff to keep a geek busy learning, and be powerful enough to satisfy the geek's every whim.
-Sara
*laughs* My grandmother would touch it really gently, push it VERY slowly whilst staring at it and moving her eyes back and forth to the monitor, roll it off the mousepad, roll it until it bumped a wall, pick it up, SLAM it down, and repeat. After she finally located the icon on the screen and went to click it she'd SMASH the button and then her hand would fly up and away nearly smacking me in the head. =]
The mouse is *definitely* an odd concept.
-Sara
Nah. I'm terribly patient, as could be witnessed by someone watching me teach my 80-something year old grandmother how to use a mouse. "No Gram, you keep you hand on it after you click. Click a little more gently than that, gram. It's sensitive." And not laughing at her when she called the mouse a 'rat' and asked why she had to play with its but to get things to happen... Or when she called the monitor a tv. She was an interested and active learner, asking questions and willing to experiment/generalise what she was learning.
My mother is the equivilent of a child throwing a temper tantrum, clapping their hands over their ears and singing "I don't heeeeeaaaar you." And she is the majority. She is capable of learning, but only when she doesn't know she's learning. If she asks me "How do you do this?" and I tell her, she promptly forgets it. If I ask her to repeat what I just said I get a response like "Oh, some computer thing."
I realize and respect that computers are new to her. I admire her for being willing to touch them and play with them. I DO NOT like it when she plays dumb. I do NOT like it when I know she's capable of learning something but lets her own insecurity get in the way.
On the plus side, since I made the "List of things that will destroy the computer" for her, she's a bit more willing to experiment. "Do not drop it off a cliff, do not put it in the bathtub, do not set it on fire or blow it up. Do not stick magnets to the side. Do not put a coffee cup in the CD-R drive."
The other day she reinstalled her printer all on her own without my even telling her she had to go to the start menu. I was very proud... She still doesn't remember how to copy and paste, though. I don't think she ever will.
-Sara
*laughs* I think the only interface that has that kind of button is a porno site. =] And even THEN you need to jump through the hoops of proving you're an adult.
-Sara
I'm not foolish. I've told her the steps enough times, and she understands the steps. She knows that right-clicking brings up a menu. She does it all the time. She knows that highlighting something means dragging the mouse over it.. She even knows how to drag the mouse. She is able to read the menus that drop down... If there was any task on that list that she was unable to complete individually when given the vague instructions "highlight text" "right click choose an option from the list" then I'd have more patience.
Someone who can perform each of the tasks involved without even thinking, but is unable to string them together has something wrong with them either attitude-wise or mentally.
"I just don't understand computer stuff" is NOT an excuse. I understand it's complex and annoying and hard to grasp, but when you are GIVEN the steps and you UNDERSTAND the steps, what's preventing you from remembering them?
-Sara
Hm. Recompiling apache with mod_perl takes what? fewer than 5 minutes of hands-on time? =] Can't get much more simple than that.
;)
I find command-line interfaces supplemented by man pages to be the most intuitive, easy to learn interface possible... Probably because you only need to learn each component once, and then it interacts with all the other components of the OS to produce the desired effect. GUI's make things needlessly complex in their attempt at user-friendliness.
But... Seriously. Those things you speak of are geek things. Geeks don't need simplicity.
-Sara
Actually I was first put in front of a computer at the tender young age of 15, and recieved no official instruction in it other than watching briefly as someone moved the mouse. I reached out, grabbed it, and after a failed attempt or three was able to use it successfully. I learned DOS without a manual... Of course I'm probably exceptional. Foo. I also could read Latin more or less without ever learning any of it, simply because I was a habitual dictionary-reader and knew more or less by instinct what the parts of the words meant, and I could relate the Latin I didn't know to the English I did. Ok I'm odd.
Small tag is illegal because of trolls. As it should be.
-Sara
And, seeing as my mother can't figure out that clicking "update" on the liveupdate popup from Norton will update her antivirus and that it's a good thing, I guess I should be happy that she can't download. :p
Although she does seem to keep on top of things like the teddy bear virus.
-Sara
All users are idiots until they prove otherwise... To assume otherwise would be foolish, as most people cannot troubleshoot or learn to use the simplest thing.
I'm not saying that interfaces aren't needlessly obtuse. They are. They could stand a LOT of improvement. (Read: Microsoft's habit of scattering settings to kingdom come, and OS X's new "Help system" with the navigation buttons at the bloody bottom)
I'm merely saying that if someone can't find their way around an obtuse interface, then chances are they're not going to find their way around a well-thought out one. Most people are so accustomed to being intimidated by anything electronic that they freak out before they even see if they CAN do it. And WITHOUT CHECKING, they *still* complain about how the interface is too complex.
Young people find computers to be intuitive, older people do not. Why? Because for the most part older people have a closed mindset. They grew up in an era when only programmers touched computers. Their conclusions? "Oh, doing that takes a computer science degree." My response? "No it bloody doesn't. You KNOW what 'download' means, doesn't it follow reason that in order to complete the task of downloading the file, you click 'download'?!"
-Sara
That's what pisses me off about "users". They can have a 5-page instruction manual on a program that covers everything and they still prefer to ask you because it's "computery" and "complex". Even if "getting their hands dirty" took 5 minutes they'd still prefer not to.
Instead they choose to blame the interface designers and manual writers for making things needlessly complex.
It's a wonder the world's shoes aren't all velcro.
-Sara
I have plenty of respect for my mother when she deserves it, but low tolerance for willful stupidity.
Besides which, she was able to recognize it as a useful excercise, and after repeating it a few times she finally did learn how to copy-paste. It served as a mnemonic trick for her.
-Sara
Spelling and grammar IS important, when something such as "moot" is spelled "mute" it's not even a spelling issue. They're using the wrong word. It's like someone calling the entire chassis/everything in the chassis sitting next to their desk "the cpu". They'll say "The CPU is broken". You'll assume that it's blown and needs to be replaced, order a new one, and then discover that it was unplugged. (Well, ok so you'd troubleshoot first, but that's not the point)
;)
Spelling something wrong on occasion is unavoidable, yes. Critique for spelling errors is best reserved to email or other forms of private communcation, yes. But getting pissed off because someone is tired of hearing people misuse a word all the time is just as insane.
Of course, this is a mute point.
-Sara
The world is divided into two categories. Those who "get it" and those who do not. Those who "get it" understand that everything has a pattern and all they have to do is play with the gadget and read the manual/documentation and understanding will come. Those who do not get it are akin to those who call us over to set the time on their VCR without even checking to see if they could do it themselves. Those who ask us 200 times how to copy/paste and cannot remember simply because their mindset is that computers are scary complex things that do not make sense.
These people are not going to be helped by simplification. These people are not going to be helped by hand-holding.
There needs to be some sort of "mind building" curriculum for people who are afraid of electronics. I believe that people who are told a 3-step process (such as copy-paste) 200 times and STILL cannot remember are mentally defective and in need of rehabilitive therapy.
Think about it. If someone is told even 10 times that "If you push the doorbell a bell will ring" and cannot remember it, you'll assume they are brain damaged and treat them as such.
That's how I've come to treat my mother when she asks me how to copy and paste. Finally I took her to the local drugstore and made her copy a piece of paper. I brought her home and had her paste it onto another piece of paper. I then had her describe the steps she had to take to me by writing them down. If she skipped something like "Put the money into the machine" or "select number of copies" then I'd get confused and make her go back to the beginning. Afterwards I brought her over to the computer and said "There are no settings. There is nothing to remember. You drag the mouse to highlight the text you want to copy. You press the right mouse button and choose "copy". You move to the new document and right-click and choose "paste" HOW is that more complex than what you just did with the copier over at the drugstore? HOW is that more complex than tying your shoes?"
She agreed, and then 10 minutes later called me over because she couldn't figure out how to copy/paste. She didn't even try.
-Sara
Er. Do I want it to send me email? I get enough junk mail as it is. If it goes down I'll notice, since it is my primary workstation. I am notified about failing fans, though. In addition I'm notified when the CPU throttles itself down due to overheating, or due to a fan going slower than it should. It doesn't blink lights at me, but it does have really cool blue and red LED's on the front. Does that count? ;)
And as for processor, how's a dualie athlon 1900+ with 2 80GB hard drives?
Ok, so I don't have the computer I just described.. I just get to play with it. But it did weigh in at less than the current G4's price-wise. Mine's a 900Duron that does absolutely nothing spectacular, but hey- I got what I paid for at $300 last fall.
-Sara
Uh.
Two thumbscrews, pull-out mobo tray with detachable front panel connectors. PCI/AGP slots with thumbscrews. Purdy gleaming aluminum and blue case lights. I vote for Lian Li. Although my crappy black "Future Case" suits me just fine.
I have to bunjee cord my mac's to my desk to prevent them from falling over due to their "convenient" handles.
*growl*
I know, I know. I'm going to get modded down for responding to flamebait. Hmph.
-Sara
Er.
1- It's built into my hardware. My BIOS does it automatically. Some chips even come with overheat protection (P4, anybody?) so that if the mobo fails to recognize the overheating, or if the overheating happens too fast for the mobo to respond, then you still won't end up with a fried chip.
2- If you get what you pay for, shouldn't my mac be walking the dog, taking out the garbage, and giving me a massage every night? I should try to train it to do that. =]
-Sara