Probably didn't notice coz he was too busy typing his PIN number in ASCII code into the GUI interface showing on the LCD display of an ATM machine connected via its NIC card using the IP protocol over the WAN network to the HSBC bank...
VB/Delphi using pixel placement layout allow you to place the controls on a form just so, but what about resize?
It's not just resizing that makes absolute layout a Bad Thing(TM). What happens when you're running on a machine with different default fonts? What happens when you've translated your app into a different language, and all the fixed strings are longer? What happens when the screen's smaller than you anticipated? What happens when you're running on a different version of Windows (let alone another OS) and the widgets have changed size slightly? And the story goes on...
Absolute layout only works if every aspect of the display is precisely the same; which is a pretty short-sighed way of designing software.
in most cases it's plain user error and not system error.
We're not blaming Windows for user error: we're blaming Windows because something like user error can bring it down! Any decent, secure system wouldn't allow mere users to do that kind of damage, no matter how stupid they were. That's what 'security' means.
The key is not hiring incompetent sysadmins. Let one of those loose on any OS and you definitely won't end up with something that's secure.
True enough. Trouble is, on Windows, by the time it's locked down enough to be secure, people can't do useful work on it...
yurigoul, repeat after me: THE WEB IS NOT A MAGAZINE. A web site is NOT about creating a pixel-for-pixel copy of your favourite design on someone else's screen, because you have no idea what their 'screen' is like, and they may have radically different design preferences from yours.
If you want something like that, use PDF. Or use image files. But that's not a web site.
Remember that my system may have a very different screen from yours. It might just have many more or fewer pixels; its resolution (pixel density) might be very different; it might have more or fewer colours available; it might even be text-only, or in audio or Braille or some other form.
Even if I'm using a fairly standard GUI screen, my browser window might not take up all of it. (And DON'T try to change the size; I set the window size for a good reason! Maybe I want to see something else at the same time. Maybe I hate really long lines of text. Maybe I have several sidebars up.) I may not be using the same fonts as you, in which case text may not take up the amount of space you expect. (Don't try to change my fonts, either! Your fonts might not be available on my system, or I may have much better ones that I prefer.) Don't assume that your adverts will take up any particular amount of space, coz I may well strip 'em out with AdBlock. Don't assume I'm using the same colours as you; I may find something else easier on my eyes (remember, my surroundings and ambient lighting are probably different from yours). Don't assume I want 50% of my screen taken up with a massive sidebar, and another 50% with a massive header. (I'm here for the CONTENT, for goodness' sake.) If you have links, don't do something stupid with JavaScript to hide their target: I won't visit links unless I can see where they're going. Don't assume I have a fast connection; if I see my PDA trying to download a multiple-MB Flash intro, I'll go somewhere else. (In fact, Flash intros are likely to sent me away anyway.) If you want scrollbars or other GUI widgets, use the real thing; don't assume I'm using XP, coz I'm not, and they'll just look stupid and probably won't work properly.
In short, don't assume ANYTHING about my system, my situation, my connection, or my needs! Your job isn't to force me to bend to your will. It's to provide a site that I can look at the way I want to. Because I will anyway, whether you want me to or not. And millions like me will.
Case in point: www.odeon.co.uk. (A UK-based cinema chain.) The main site has always been IE-only: annoying menus bobbing up and down the screen, tiny grey-on-black text, faked text panels which scroll far too slowly, slow transitions... In short, the designers must have loved it but I certainly didn't -- and not only coz it was the only site I had to load up IE for. Apparently, though, all of our complaints have mounted up. Although the main site hasn't changed, they've added a subsidiary site which is much simpler and mostly text. That one works with all browsers, looks like it adjusts to all screen sizes, and is far far faster to load, navigate, and USE!
Now, if they'd thought to make an accessible site from the start, they'd have saved lots of bother, have a better final result, and wouldn't be in so many people's bad books.
Another case in point: Google. Back when they were the new kid on the block, one of their major selling points (apart from the great coverage) was the simplicity of their web site. One image, one text box, two buttons, and a couple of lines of text. Simplicity itself, worked everywhere, let you get straight on with the business of searching and then got out of your way. Compared with the bloated portals of Yahoo and Altavista, it was a real breath of fresh air, and I reckon it was one of the main factors in their success.
While that's great for you and the bands you'll be working with, please don't give the impression that it's a model which can work for all performers and types of music. There's a lot of music which simply can't be performed live, and bands which wouldn't be able to spend the necessary time in the studio to create great works if they had the pressure of touring to worry about (or recover from).
Case in point: the Beatles gave up touring in order to spend time developing their music. They simply wouldn't have had the time, the space, the inspiration, the freedom to create classic albums like Sgt Pepper and Magical Mystery Tour if they'd had the pressure of touring. And even if they had, they might well have chosen to limit themselves only to sounds, instruments, and parts they could play live. Either would have been a great loss.
Re: Online before broadcast
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IT Crowd On-line
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Open All Hours wasn't bad. The writing was a little formulaic, but the situation was fairly interesting, and Ronnie Barker was worth watching. (He was a better character actor than people gave him credit for.) Can't say it did a huge amount for me, though.
OTOH, I hated Friends. Partly coz most of my college friends loved it, and I never understood why. It just seemed so smug, with all this fake coziness and forced charm. It seemed soulless. It also seemed as if having 300 writers led to a barrage of one-liners with no connection, character, meaning, style, plot, or point.
Which has pretty much been my impression of all the US sit coms I've seen, in fact...
A while ago, someone (Jeremy Hardy?) commented on the difference between the UK and US film industries, to the effect that while American films featured drama, tragedy, and ugly real life, British films featured amiable people getting into a bit of a pickle. Which is odd, because in sit com terms things seem to be reversed: British sit coms often have ugly, cruel, nasty characters, real monsters in some cases (think of Edmund Blackadder, Father Jack, Arnold Rimmer, just about anyone who lives in Royston Vasey...). Whereas the worst US sit coms seem to have is amiable people getting into a bit of a pickle. Impossibly good-looking, amimable people. Smug, impossibly good-looking, amiable people. Who always seem to have an impossibly witty amiable thing to say. And then have to wait two minutes for the applause to die down before continuing.
US comedies are generally pretty popular over here, so I'm clearly in a minority with this one. But I just don't find any of them funny!
Re: What's wrong with a laughter track?
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· Score: 1
I don't think that RD ever used 'canned' laughter as such.
The first six series were mostly recorded in front of a live studio audience; there were many film inserts (especially in series 5 and 6), but AIUI they played those to the studio audience via monitors, so what you hear is still the genuine reaction of a live audience.
Series 7, was recorded in a movie manner, without an audience. But AIUI the laughter track was made in a fairly similar way: they got a real audience, played the completed episodes to them, and taped their genuine reaction. So while it's not a 'live' audience, in the sense that they weren't present during the performance and the performers weren't aware of them, it's still a real audience laughter track, with real people (well, okay, fans:) giving their real reactions to the episodes.
Series 8 went back to the recorded-live-in-front-of-a-studio-audience format, due in part to complaints about the previous series. Which, having watched Series 7 again, I think is something of a shame. But that's another discussion...
Anyway. My impression is that 'canned' laughter as such -- recordings of individual laughs inserted wherever the producer thinks appropriate -- is actually fairly rare on British TV. (Terrestrial, at least.) Does anyone know different?
Re: What's wrong with a laughter track?
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IT Crowd On-line
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· Score: 1
I'm afraid that all the Red Dwarf episodes have had a laughter track, right from the beginning. As did practically all comedies back then. (The only exception before that I can think of is, appropriately enough, Hitch-hiker's.) In fact, I believe the only RD episodes you can hear without laughter track are the few extended versions on a couple of the DVDs.
As I said elsewhere, I suspect that we're more aware of it now, because it's no longer ubiquitous.
A laughter track is good for one thing: telling you which are the funny bits, and when to laugh. (It also provides a comfort factor; some people don't like to laugh alone.) However, a comedy series with a laughter track is seen only in relation to the number of gags. And gags, while often good, are short-term, often shallow, and in too great a number actually detract from the meat of the series. So unless it's so shallow that the gags are the meat of the series (which in this case remains to be seen), the lack of a laughter track gives some space to delve into funny situations, drama, bizarreness, style, reality, format, characterisation, darkness, ideas, discomfort, general strangeness -- you know, all the things sit coms aren't supposed to have.
Still, some seem to have done rather well without one: I've mentioned Hitch-hiker's, but there were also The Day Today and Brass Eye, and of course many more in the last few years. While I haven't enjoyed all of those, I'm glad they've given the genre enough of a shake-up that we find ourselves having this discussion!
Re: Online before broadcast
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· Score: 2, Informative
Yes, but has it been done before with something that was made for terrestrial TV?
(In my area, I can't even get Channel 5, let alone anything on FreeView... Not that I'm bitter, you understand.)
Anyway. Having seen it, I agree with the comments about the intrusive laughter track. But I it's no worse than we've been used to for decades; it's just that many of the more recent comedies have been brave enough to do without one, so its presence is more obvious now.
I also agree with comments about the old-fashioned feel. The 'IT department' it shows is only really about PC support, which is a far cry from many IT roles. But then, that's not the point -- the show isn't really about IT, just as Father Ted wasn't about the priesthood, Black Books wasn't really about the book trade, and Big Train wasn't about locomotives. It's just a way to provide a bland office setting, and a couple of nerds.
I found the show pleasant enough. Not particularly original, different, or inspired, but I've seen a lot worse. Still, Hyperdrive is the one I shall make sure I'm home for -- despite all the comparisons to another well-known sci-fi comedy, I think that's an original show, well made, and finding its own identity.
I disagree completely! Those first two books were pretty much straight satire -- of well-known fantasy styles and authors (Tolkien, McCaffrey, Lieber, etc.). If you know the style it's parodying at each point, then you may well appreciate it. I didn't, and was rather nonplussed by quite a bit in those two books. It was only after that that he really found his own style and voice, and the parody gave way to genuine originality.
So, like me, a random reader might not appreciate those first two books. And even if they do, they're not really a representative sample.
My first book was Mort, and I'd agree with the other posts that it's a good entry point. A strong story on its own, without too much baggage or unnecessary complexity. It's also fairly short and to the point. Plus I really enjoy it! Others meeting all those criteria are Pyramids and Guards! Guards!.
BTW, as mentioned in another thread, Terry is, well, if not a geek, then at least a long-term computer user; he's been on Usenet, and he's a regular poster on the CIX conferencing system (a UK-based BBS).
Actually, the whole article is worth reading, but that section is particularly relevant here. He goes on to say that expressing yourself "clearly and well is important. If you can't be bothered to do that, we can't be bothered to pay attention. Spend the extra effort to polish your language. It doesn't have to be stiff or formal -- in fact, hacker culture values informal, slangy and humorous language used with precision. But it has to be precise; there has to be some indication that you're thinking and paying attention."
Well said! That image of a pipeline stall is really vivid, and at last I understand why I find bad grammar/spelling/punctuation so frustrating. Writing is about communication, and those errors are just barriers to it -- a few of them, and I might not understand you; too many, and I won't even bother trying.
As you say, a little extra care spent by the writer has a disproportionately large effect on a site like this, where each article posted has one writer (two, if you count the editor as well), but thousands or tens of thousands of readers.
Also, English isn't the first language of some readers. While they obviously don't come here just to learn the language, you'd be helping them (along with a depressing number of English-speaking readers who ought to know better) by providing a reasonable example.
So: writers (submitters, editors, commenters), for all these reasons please try to put a little care into what you're writing!
Even if it flew over the heads of most readers, I thought you'd like to know I appreciated it (though my work colleagues wondered what the giggling was about).
Well, yes, but other people love them separately. Remember that the iPod is one product. iTunes is another. The iTunes Music Store is a third. It's completely possible to use each of them separately, and many people do.
Personally speaking, I use iTunes for most of my music listening. (In conjunction with lame for encoding, Amadeus II for editing, etc.) And I have an iPod for my mobile music.
But I've never used the iTunes Music Store, and can't see myself doing so -- here in the UK it's expensive, it has only limited coverage of my very wide-ranging musical taste, and I won't buy stuff that I can't use on other devices, now and in the future. (allofmp3 does fine for my music needs, scoring on all three points. And while mention of that site always seems to spark heated discussion, this really isn't the place!)
So while I really like iTunes, the moment Apple starts to force me towards their Music Store, I'll start to look at another music player. At present, though, I'm still happy with it -- the option to completely disable the Music Store may be slightly harder to find now it's in the Parental options, but it's still just as effective!
No-one is born a terrorist, though. And I bet few of them suddenly wake up one morning and think "Right! Now I'm going to be a terrorist" without having had thoughts about the issues before. Maybe read some books that are 'subversive', maybe attended some non-mainstream rallies or religious meetings, maybe happened to know people who knew some people who had slight links to terrorism. Maybe they use encryption on their computers, use 'illegal' software. That sort of thing. And all before they get round to thinking "Now I'm a terrorist, I'd better be careful that TPTB don't find out, so I'll act completely normally."
So there may well be 'warning signs' in the various products, services, activities, associations, and movements of someone well before they become an active terrorist. And I can well imagine some not-so-scrupulous officials trying to get hold of that information "for national security, you understand".
The trouble is that thousands of perfectly normal people who'd never even remotely consider any form of violence, who've never so much as got a parking ticket, also read 'subversive' books, go to non-mainstream events, have things they want to hide with encryption, and probably happen to know someone distantly connected with terrorism. And that's their absolute right!
That's why such things are none of TPTB's business. They conclusions they might draw are dangerous, unfair, an in most cases probably downright wrong.
Of course, anyone who's still capable of thought after the media frenzy of the last few years will realise that 'terrorist' is the new word for 'bogeyman', just as 'communist' was in the US a generation or two ago, and 'witch' a few hundred years before that. In amongst the billions of people in the world, terrorists are so few (and their impact so vastly exaggerated by the media) that they're really not worth worrying about. Why not worry more about, I dunno, road accidents, or obesity?
Because that wouldn't give us a warm, comfortable feeling of anger and a conveniently well-defined, 'foreign' group of people to get angry about, that's why...
If you haven't tried VLC recently, it might be worth another look. It used to be extremely flaky, but the last couple of versions have made great improvements and I find it very solid now. Still more to be done, of course -- DVD menus in particular are a bit quirky. But it seems perfectly usable now on pretty much all of my DVDs (including a couple of Region-1s); I think I resorted to Apple's one only once or twice last year.
I can understand asking about something that wouldn't have cropped up earlier in the interview. But hasn't the entire interview up to that point been mainly about satisfying the interviewer on that very point?
In which case, you're really asking a fairly direct "How has this interview gone?" sort of question, which is a double-edged sword. IMO it marks you as a fairly direct, confident, aggressive, even smug person, which may count for or against you depending on the level of position you're interviewing for, the sort of work involved, the company culture, etc. -- and of course how the interview has gone up to then!
"There hasn't been anything fresh to get consumers excited in a while."
I think this is the real issue here. Not lack of quality -- let's face it, there's always been a lot of dross -- but lack of variety. Once you've bought a hundred whiny indie albums that all sound the same, where's the incentive to buy any more? Or a hundred tinny schoolgirl pop albums, or a hundred of, well, most of the standard genres really.
Once you have a large enough music collection, an album has to be either substantially better, or substantially different to be worth buying, and both qualities seem to be lacking these days.
No, it's never been a problem for me. Make sure that the hook on your '1' is short and sharply angled. Where it's especially important, I sometimes draw a short baseline on it too, which helps.
I think this varies depending on where you are. Here in the UK, straight-line '1's and unbarred '7's are usual; I gather than in continental Europe that's not so true. I dunno which are more common in the US or elsewhere.
The variation is interesting, though. For example, some people put a loop at the bottom of their '2's, but I find that confusing and unnecessary. There's also variation between closed and open '4's as well.
Yep, that's important too. I always cross 'Z's and '7's; I also put a little hook on '1's (continental European style, to distinguish from capital 'I' and lower-case 'l') and use rounded 't's (to stop them looking too much like '+'s). All part of clarity and safe degradability. The most awkward are zeroes and 'O's; I put a slash through zero when it's important, but I don't usually bother.
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Probably didn't notice coz he was too busy typing his PIN number in ASCII code into the GUI interface showing on the LCD display of an ATM machine connected via its NIC card using the IP protocol over the WAN network to the HSBC bank...
It's not just resizing that makes absolute layout a Bad Thing(TM). What happens when you're running on a machine with different default fonts? What happens when you've translated your app into a different language, and all the fixed strings are longer? What happens when the screen's smaller than you anticipated? What happens when you're running on a different version of Windows (let alone another OS) and the widgets have changed size slightly? And the story goes on...
Absolute layout only works if every aspect of the display is precisely the same; which is a pretty short-sighed way of designing software.
I gather it's the same elsewhere, too; www.google.com resolves to the user's local Google site.
(Anyone know how they do this? Is it by the user's IP address, or do they do route tracing or something?)
yurigoul, repeat after me: THE WEB IS NOT A MAGAZINE. A web site is NOT about creating a pixel-for-pixel copy of your favourite design on someone else's screen, because you have no idea what their 'screen' is like, and they may have radically different design preferences from yours.
If you want something like that, use PDF. Or use image files. But that's not a web site.
Remember that my system may have a very different screen from yours. It might just have many more or fewer pixels; its resolution (pixel density) might be very different; it might have more or fewer colours available; it might even be text-only, or in audio or Braille or some other form.
Even if I'm using a fairly standard GUI screen, my browser window might not take up all of it. (And DON'T try to change the size; I set the window size for a good reason! Maybe I want to see something else at the same time. Maybe I hate really long lines of text. Maybe I have several sidebars up.) I may not be using the same fonts as you, in which case text may not take up the amount of space you expect. (Don't try to change my fonts, either! Your fonts might not be available on my system, or I may have much better ones that I prefer.) Don't assume that your adverts will take up any particular amount of space, coz I may well strip 'em out with AdBlock. Don't assume I'm using the same colours as you; I may find something else easier on my eyes (remember, my surroundings and ambient lighting are probably different from yours). Don't assume I want 50% of my screen taken up with a massive sidebar, and another 50% with a massive header. (I'm here for the CONTENT, for goodness' sake.) If you have links, don't do something stupid with JavaScript to hide their target: I won't visit links unless I can see where they're going. Don't assume I have a fast connection; if I see my PDA trying to download a multiple-MB Flash intro, I'll go somewhere else. (In fact, Flash intros are likely to sent me away anyway.) If you want scrollbars or other GUI widgets, use the real thing; don't assume I'm using XP, coz I'm not, and they'll just look stupid and probably won't work properly.
In short, don't assume ANYTHING about my system, my situation, my connection, or my needs! Your job isn't to force me to bend to your will. It's to provide a site that I can look at the way I want to. Because I will anyway, whether you want me to or not. And millions like me will.
Case in point: www.odeon.co.uk. (A UK-based cinema chain.) The main site has always been IE-only: annoying menus bobbing up and down the screen, tiny grey-on-black text, faked text panels which scroll far too slowly, slow transitions... In short, the designers must have loved it but I certainly didn't -- and not only coz it was the only site I had to load up IE for. Apparently, though, all of our complaints have mounted up. Although the main site hasn't changed, they've added a subsidiary site which is much simpler and mostly text. That one works with all browsers, looks like it adjusts to all screen sizes, and is far far faster to load, navigate, and USE!
Now, if they'd thought to make an accessible site from the start, they'd have saved lots of bother, have a better final result, and wouldn't be in so many people's bad books.
Another case in point: Google. Back when they were the new kid on the block, one of their major selling points (apart from the great coverage) was the simplicity of their web site. One image, one text box, two buttons, and a couple of lines of text. Simplicity itself, worked everywhere, let you get straight on with the business of searching and then got out of your way. Compared with the bloated portals of Yahoo and Altavista, it was a real breath of fresh air, and I reckon it was one of the main factors in their success.
I think there's a lesson there for us all.
Case in point: the Beatles gave up touring in order to spend time developing their music. They simply wouldn't have had the time, the space, the inspiration, the freedom to create classic albums like Sgt Pepper and Magical Mystery Tour if they'd had the pressure of touring. And even if they had, they might well have chosen to limit themselves only to sounds, instruments, and parts they could play live. Either would have been a great loss.
OTOH, I hated Friends. Partly coz most of my college friends loved it, and I never understood why. It just seemed so smug, with all this fake coziness and forced charm. It seemed soulless. It also seemed as if having 300 writers led to a barrage of one-liners with no connection, character, meaning, style, plot, or point.
Which has pretty much been my impression of all the US sit coms I've seen, in fact...
A while ago, someone (Jeremy Hardy?) commented on the difference between the UK and US film industries, to the effect that while American films featured drama, tragedy, and ugly real life, British films featured amiable people getting into a bit of a pickle. Which is odd, because in sit com terms things seem to be reversed: British sit coms often have ugly, cruel, nasty characters, real monsters in some cases (think of Edmund Blackadder, Father Jack, Arnold Rimmer, just about anyone who lives in Royston Vasey...). Whereas the worst US sit coms seem to have is amiable people getting into a bit of a pickle. Impossibly good-looking, amimable people. Smug, impossibly good-looking, amiable people. Who always seem to have an impossibly witty amiable thing to say. And then have to wait two minutes for the applause to die down before continuing.
US comedies are generally pretty popular over here, so I'm clearly in a minority with this one. But I just don't find any of them funny!
The first six series were mostly recorded in front of a live studio audience; there were many film inserts (especially in series 5 and 6), but AIUI they played those to the studio audience via monitors, so what you hear is still the genuine reaction of a live audience.
Series 7, was recorded in a movie manner, without an audience. But AIUI the laughter track was made in a fairly similar way: they got a real audience, played the completed episodes to them, and taped their genuine reaction. So while it's not a 'live' audience, in the sense that they weren't present during the performance and the performers weren't aware of them, it's still a real audience laughter track, with real people (well, okay, fans :) giving their real reactions to the episodes.
Series 8 went back to the recorded-live-in-front-of-a-studio-audience format, due in part to complaints about the previous series. Which, having watched Series 7 again, I think is something of a shame. But that's another discussion...
Anyway. My impression is that 'canned' laughter as such -- recordings of individual laughs inserted wherever the producer thinks appropriate -- is actually fairly rare on British TV. (Terrestrial, at least.) Does anyone know different?
As I said elsewhere, I suspect that we're more aware of it now, because it's no longer ubiquitous.
A laughter track is good for one thing: telling you which are the funny bits, and when to laugh. (It also provides a comfort factor; some people don't like to laugh alone.) However, a comedy series with a laughter track is seen only in relation to the number of gags. And gags, while often good, are short-term, often shallow, and in too great a number actually detract from the meat of the series. So unless it's so shallow that the gags are the meat of the series (which in this case remains to be seen), the lack of a laughter track gives some space to delve into funny situations, drama, bizarreness, style, reality, format, characterisation, darkness, ideas, discomfort, general strangeness -- you know, all the things sit coms aren't supposed to have.
Still, some seem to have done rather well without one: I've mentioned Hitch-hiker's, but there were also The Day Today and Brass Eye, and of course many more in the last few years. While I haven't enjoyed all of those, I'm glad they've given the genre enough of a shake-up that we find ourselves having this discussion!
(In my area, I can't even get Channel 5, let alone anything on FreeView... Not that I'm bitter, you understand.)
Anyway. Having seen it, I agree with the comments about the intrusive laughter track. But I it's no worse than we've been used to for decades; it's just that many of the more recent comedies have been brave enough to do without one, so its presence is more obvious now.
I also agree with comments about the old-fashioned feel. The 'IT department' it shows is only really about PC support, which is a far cry from many IT roles. But then, that's not the point -- the show isn't really about IT, just as Father Ted wasn't about the priesthood, Black Books wasn't really about the book trade, and Big Train wasn't about locomotives. It's just a way to provide a bland office setting, and a couple of nerds.
I found the show pleasant enough. Not particularly original, different, or inspired, but I've seen a lot worse. Still, Hyperdrive is the one I shall make sure I'm home for -- despite all the comparisons to another well-known sci-fi comedy, I think that's an original show, well made, and finding its own identity.
So, like me, a random reader might not appreciate those first two books. And even if they do, they're not really a representative sample.
My first book was Mort, and I'd agree with the other posts that it's a good entry point. A strong story on its own, without too much baggage or unnecessary complexity. It's also fairly short and to the point. Plus I really enjoy it! Others meeting all those criteria are Pyramids and Guards! Guards!.
BTW, as mentioned in another thread, Terry is, well, if not a geek, then at least a long-term computer user; he's been on Usenet, and he's a regular poster on the CIX conferencing system (a UK-based BBS).
Actually, the whole article is worth reading, but that section is particularly relevant here. He goes on to say that expressing yourself "clearly and well is important. If you can't be bothered to do that, we can't be bothered to pay attention. Spend the extra effort to polish your language. It doesn't have to be stiff or formal -- in fact, hacker culture values informal, slangy and humorous language used with precision. But it has to be precise; there has to be some indication that you're thinking and paying attention."
'Nuff said, I think.
As you say, a little extra care spent by the writer has a disproportionately large effect on a site like this, where each article posted has one writer (two, if you count the editor as well), but thousands or tens of thousands of readers.
Also, English isn't the first language of some readers. While they obviously don't come here just to learn the language, you'd be helping them (along with a depressing number of English-speaking readers who ought to know better) by providing a reasonable example.
So: writers (submitters, editors, commenters), for all these reasons please try to put a little care into what you're writing!
Even if it flew over the heads of most readers, I thought you'd like to know I appreciated it (though my work colleagues wondered what the giggling was about).
Well, yes, but other people love them separately. Remember that the iPod is one product. iTunes is another. The iTunes Music Store is a third. It's completely possible to use each of them separately, and many people do.
Personally speaking, I use iTunes for most of my music listening. (In conjunction with lame for encoding, Amadeus II for editing, etc.) And I have an iPod for my mobile music.
But I've never used the iTunes Music Store, and can't see myself doing so -- here in the UK it's expensive, it has only limited coverage of my very wide-ranging musical taste, and I won't buy stuff that I can't use on other devices, now and in the future. (allofmp3 does fine for my music needs, scoring on all three points. And while mention of that site always seems to spark heated discussion, this really isn't the place!)
So while I really like iTunes, the moment Apple starts to force me towards their Music Store, I'll start to look at another music player. At present, though, I'm still happy with it -- the option to completely disable the Music Store may be slightly harder to find now it's in the Parental options, but it's still just as effective!
So there may well be 'warning signs' in the various products, services, activities, associations, and movements of someone well before they become an active terrorist. And I can well imagine some not-so-scrupulous officials trying to get hold of that information "for national security, you understand".
The trouble is that thousands of perfectly normal people who'd never even remotely consider any form of violence, who've never so much as got a parking ticket, also read 'subversive' books, go to non-mainstream events, have things they want to hide with encryption, and probably happen to know someone distantly connected with terrorism. And that's their absolute right!
That's why such things are none of TPTB's business. They conclusions they might draw are dangerous, unfair, an in most cases probably downright wrong.
Of course, anyone who's still capable of thought after the media frenzy of the last few years will realise that 'terrorist' is the new word for 'bogeyman', just as 'communist' was in the US a generation or two ago, and 'witch' a few hundred years before that. In amongst the billions of people in the world, terrorists are so few (and their impact so vastly exaggerated by the media) that they're really not worth worrying about. Why not worry more about, I dunno, road accidents, or obesity?
Because that wouldn't give us a warm, comfortable feeling of anger and a conveniently well-defined, 'foreign' group of people to get angry about, that's why...
In which case, you're really asking a fairly direct "How has this interview gone?" sort of question, which is a double-edged sword. IMO it marks you as a fairly direct, confident, aggressive, even smug person, which may count for or against you depending on the level of position you're interviewing for, the sort of work involved, the company culture, etc. -- and of course how the interview has gone up to then!
I think this is the real issue here. Not lack of quality -- let's face it, there's always been a lot of dross -- but lack of variety. Once you've bought a hundred whiny indie albums that all sound the same, where's the incentive to buy any more? Or a hundred tinny schoolgirl pop albums, or a hundred of, well, most of the standard genres really.
Once you have a large enough music collection, an album has to be either substantially better, or substantially different to be worth buying, and both qualities seem to be lacking these days.
I think this varies depending on where you are. Here in the UK, straight-line '1's and unbarred '7's are usual; I gather than in continental Europe that's not so true. I dunno which are more common in the US or elsewhere.
The variation is interesting, though. For example, some people put a loop at the bottom of their '2's, but I find that confusing and unnecessary. There's also variation between closed and open '4's as well.