Novels are all about letting the user interpret he prose, in fact they rely upon it.
The web is not a distribution channel for prose however at least not in it's entirety. Attention spans are way too short for using words to communicate on the web. It has to be done with visuals and media... for 99% of the people out there who really don't know what they are looking for and need someone to identify what is important. They simply won't take the time to read a lengthy document unless they have first been captivated by a first impression that grabs their interest.
Ad people, marketing people and designers with experience know this, it's statistical fact.
FYI, bold brightly color text may not be appealing to you but it does grab your attention (though with a negative impact) and is typically targeted at a low income demographic (think coupon mailers or 'on sale, 30% off' signs for reference).
Hmmm I don't recall those tags being a part of the html spec... and honestly it's still more like a robot speaking in a monotone voice with an lcd screen in front telling me that it's being skeptical, serious or sarcastic.
Design doesn't need writing to convey mood. Just color and composition.
If I were a typographer though I would be severely insulted by your insinuation that typefaces don't make a difference.
Here's my best attempt to humor you though... ironically enough I only have markup and/. CSS to design with.
All browsers now have a user specified stylesheet available. You are more than welcome to customize your experience there as the css spec states that a user supplied stylesheet overrides the server supplied styles (unless the server calls out !important, in which case the user must also call out !important).
OTOH if you would like to see and experience the website the way the designer intended, thereby seeing the content within the context of a presentation... then allow it to happen. It's still your choice, always has been always will be (hopefully).
There are times when information presented out of context becomes less successful at communication. Markup and semantics simply are not nuanced enough to communicate mood, they do well with meaning but mood and character are out of their scope.
A fast car is still a fast car (but not as fast) with an ugly non-aerodynamic body style... but it will never feel as fast (or be as fast) as a fast car with a sporty and aerodynamic body style.
SO when I want to create a horizontal list out of your table of data and now I can't because it's stuck in a table instead of an unordered list which lets me decide how to display it I should thank you for your maintainable code?
Or when it comes time to debug why content isn't lining up correctly on a page and I have to muck through some spaghetti code of if/else madness with endless tr,td constructs and colspans that don't do anything anymore... or when you've decided that some application really should be a 3 column YAP site and you've hardcoded in a bunch of crappy menus in tables or whatever it is rather than using a proper MVC pattern and a template engine, what should I do then?
Please, just write the logic and document how to use your API. I can implement the rest in whatever format I choose.
step 2: don't let programmers touch the html markup. their job belongs in the class files defining functions and database queries. All the programmers should be doing is writing business logic that outputs the desired raw data.
don't destroy the markup with endless looping table structures because that's all you know how to code for... and it's easy.
step 0: hire an interactive director to create wireframes and a functional spec for both the designers and the programmers to follow. Then all will go smoothly until the very end, at which point the client will change their mind and chaos will ensue.
Game developers should be making special versions of the games that include multiple camera angles and support for remote control of those cameras.
Imagine a 1 on 1 combat game with head cams, fist cams, low angle shots, birds eye view shots, etc.
Currently games are set up to maintain the challenge for the gamer but few provide support for spectators. This will be easy to work around with MMOG type games, just set up extra players around the arena and use their views... but for games that are more traditional, well the view that's best for the gamers is rarely the best for the spectators.
Isn't the whole point of a library to provide access to media for students interested in various topics who wouldn't be able to afford purchasing their own copies?
Some school needs to get innovative and start up their own online media library which takes advantage of the super fast connections most campuses have and stream the media. They've tried partnering with commercial vendors but that doesn't seem to work as well as they'd hoped.
The music industry and movie industry and whomever else should be giving students access to as much music as they want.... they're only there for 4-5 years on average and after they graduate they are going to want to have the same type of access... but will have jobs and bank accounts to pay for it. Right now all they are doing is training them on how to use P2P and avoid getting caught.
Maybe they should limit internet access bandwidth to web and email ports but provide campusNet access to media servers with very fast connections. Make it really easy for students to access the legal stuff... then they'll only have to deal with the small minority who want to download *alternative* content. Even better, you could let students manage the content and create Channels. Let them create proposals for various formats and apply for budgets to buy the media for distribution to the rest of the campus. This would make the students appreciate the economics and would give them ownership which they will then defend against *pirates*.
Add to this and license Facebook servers and let students hook up their profiles with various channels, etc and build their cultural profile and talk about the latest whatever.
And of course there is no black market in transplant organs right? **/**Seems that with the number of people offering their organs for donation to those in need that there would be plenty to go around.**/**
The traditional argument for this response is to say: "Putting a value on the tissue of the unborn will create a black market for said tissue and encourage commercialization leading to fetus farms where young women are paid for their eggs for use in treating the elderly and the sick"
Research will use what is available as you say from 'tissue destined for disposal', but a commercial venture based on that research will not be satisfied with simply collecting what happens to be available. They will push for active harvesting to maintain a steady and predictable supply of embryonic tissue. It's a very slippery slope.
I'm imagining that if this became legal that it wouldn't be our own neighbors providing the tissue.. it would be poor people from 3rd world nations. Who knows what evils people will be capable of when the goal of the process is to create genetically anonymous donor tissue?
Yea and while their at it get rid of those dang newfangled auto-mobiles... I can never find a place to park my buggy, and them new quarter eatin' hitchin posts aren't worth the quarter... my horse just riggles his lead free in two minutes, too slick I tell ya... a good ol fashioned railroad tie is the way ta go.
It probably isn't but suddenly there is a whole new team of people looking to find them.... credit card fraud is serious... identity theft is serious. The FBI has to get involved. It's a federal crime.
Additionally there is now a vector to find and delete these accounts. If the spammers have to use 1 CC account for 1 Yahoo account it's going to be too high a cost to entry for it to be worth their time... even if they only pay a few dollars per account they get from some black market CC # wholesaler... AND if they use 1CC for multiple accounts, they get a flag raised by Yahoo internal systems as well as the issuing Bank ("why does this account have so many Yahoo IDs attached to it?) which means they will be found more quickly and when found Yahoo can put all the accounts on temporary lockdown. If it is a case of identity theft, then the victim will most likely want this action taken on their behalf (and it will be stated in a Service Agreement that it is mandatory).
This might not be popular but it would solve the problem for Yahoo and other big targets.... require a credit card. Use if just for verification. This would also help in keeping parents in the loop about what their kids are doing (at least on the big boards).
You both forgot the biggest one of all, MONEY.... for those who can exploit humanities desire to network... and for those who can actually get something useful out of these vast clouds of vague relationships without purpose.
Uh... by the time it's done processing it becomes Hydrogen and Syngas (from recombining some of the hydrogen with carbon monoxide), which is then turned into the fertilizer constituent (ammonia) and synthetic fuel... either gasoline, kerosene or diesel.
The resulting fuel is no more or less carbon heavy than the standard refined oil version. The only additional emissions occur during the gasification process itself, at which point it is a straightforward task of capturing the emissions and containing them for later geological sequestration.
If the process can be done economically (and there are billions of dollars being spent right now that says it can), then Coal-to-liquid is THE source of fuel from 2020 on, whether in the form of Hydrogen by-product or Synthetic Gasoline/Diesel + Bio-Additive and provides the fertilizer components needed to grow the Bio-Mass component of the fuel.
In the US we have generations of coal left, which is easily converted to natural gas and fertilizer components using Fischer-Tropsch method. Your point is good though as it really is just a trade off from one limited resource to the next... but if it will see us into a solar and nuclear future, then that's what we'll have to do.
I'd start investing in Fertilizer, Coal and CTL tech companies (already started actually).
Almost all bullets have a 'jacket' which protects them from deforming during the discharge and focuses the explosion. "They also have a Casing which holds the propellant and" It gets cast off almost immediately.
Almost all bullets have a 'jacket' which protects them from deforming during the discharge and focuses the explosion. It gets cast off almost immediately.
Also the range could be set as 10 meters to 200 meters...
Also 'harmlessly' does not mean 'without effect'. You can propel anything at 100 MPH and it's going to cause some damage....
What's neat about this is that it takes waste products that would end up in a land fill and converts them to a usable form again... with a surplus over the amount of energy needed to do so. Not much, certainly not enough to supplant alternative fuel sources... but enough to drive the conversion process and power a few other machines nearby.
This will be great for factories all around and farms and other types of businesses that end up with a lot of waste material. Maybe we can make those 75% self-sustaining... which means they won't be depleting more raw materials as quickly. This is a good thing.
Even if the only use is for our Municipal trash companies to run their fleet of vehicles off of the trash they collect... we've won a huge gain. Maybe trucking companies could do the same... converting their used tires to fuel every month (they go through a lot of tires).
This is equivalent to farms using their biomass to convert to biodiesel or ethanol for use in their farm equipment. It's not a commercial enterprise but it reduces waste and improves their efficiency which means they can pass the savings on to the rest of us (or stop needing subsidies from tax dollars).
There is... it's called a paper ballot;-p Can't get more Opensource that that (I'm a fan of electronic voting though... preferably in an election, rather than for American idol)
But we can't just explode thermonuclear warheads in our planets atmosphere to create an artificial greenhouse effect... Terraforming Mars is like remodeling a house from the ground up... just knock it all down and start over, whereas terraforming Earth.. is like trying to remodel your home while you live in it with a full-size family and a full regular work schedule, except we can't just put up painter's shrouds to block off the section we're working on.
Besides, this isn't about 'fixing' anything... there's nothing to fix on Mars and compared to Mars, there's nothing to fix on Earth either... we seem to be breathing fine (unless you live in LA, Hong Kong, London or any of the big parking lots we euphemistically call cities).
Slashdot Mirror
Novels are all about letting the user interpret he prose, in fact they rely upon it.
The web is not a distribution channel for prose however at least not in it's entirety. Attention spans are way too short for using words to communicate on the web. It has to be done with visuals and media... for 99% of the people out there who really don't know what they are looking for and need someone to identify what is important. They simply won't take the time to read a lengthy document unless they have first been captivated by a first impression that grabs their interest.
Ad people, marketing people and designers with experience know this, it's statistical fact.
FYI, bold brightly color text may not be appealing to you but it does grab your attention (though with a negative impact) and is typically targeted at a low income demographic (think coupon mailers or 'on sale, 30% off' signs for reference).
As a famous person once said, "I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today."
There were many great uses of Comic Sans before it became synonymous with lack of imagination.
Here's a great example of it being used properly
Hmmm I don't recall those tags being a part of the html spec... and honestly it's still more like a robot speaking in a monotone voice with an lcd screen in front telling me that it's being skeptical, serious or sarcastic.
Design doesn't need writing to convey mood. Just color and composition.
If I were a typographer though I would be severely insulted by your insinuation that typefaces don't make a difference.
Here's my best attempt to humor you though... ironically enough I only have markup and /. CSS to design with.
All browsers now have a user specified stylesheet available. You are more than welcome to customize your experience there as the css spec states that a user supplied stylesheet overrides the server supplied styles (unless the server calls out !important, in which case the user must also call out !important).
OTOH if you would like to see and experience the website the way the designer intended, thereby seeing the content within the context of a presentation... then allow it to happen. It's still your choice, always has been always will be (hopefully).
There are times when information presented out of context becomes less successful at communication. Markup and semantics simply are not nuanced enough to communicate mood, they do well with meaning but mood and character are out of their scope.
A fast car is still a fast car (but not as fast) with an ugly non-aerodynamic body style... but it will never feel as fast (or be as fast) as a fast car with a sporty and aerodynamic body style.
SO when I want to create a horizontal list out of your table of data and now I can't because it's stuck in a table instead of an unordered list which lets me decide how to display it I should thank you for your maintainable code?
Or when it comes time to debug why content isn't lining up correctly on a page and I have to muck through some spaghetti code of if/else madness with endless tr,td constructs and colspans that don't do anything anymore... or when you've decided that some application really should be a 3 column YAP site and you've hardcoded in a bunch of crappy menus in tables or whatever it is rather than using a proper MVC pattern and a template engine, what should I do then?
Please, just write the logic and document how to use your API. I can implement the rest in whatever format I choose.
step 2: don't let programmers touch the html markup. their job belongs in the class files defining functions and database queries. All the programmers should be doing is writing business logic that outputs the desired raw data.
don't destroy the markup with endless looping table structures because that's all you know how to code for... and it's easy.
step 0: hire an interactive director to create wireframes and a functional spec for both the designers and the programmers to follow. Then all will go smoothly until the very end, at which point the client will change their mind and chaos will ensue.
Game developers should be making special versions of the games that include multiple camera angles and support for remote control of those cameras.
Imagine a 1 on 1 combat game with head cams, fist cams, low angle shots, birds eye view shots, etc.
Currently games are set up to maintain the challenge for the gamer but few provide support for spectators. This will be easy to work around with MMOG type games, just set up extra players around the arena and use their views... but for games that are more traditional, well the view that's best for the gamers is rarely the best for the spectators.
Isn't the whole point of a library to provide access to media for students interested in various topics who wouldn't be able to afford purchasing their own copies?
Some school needs to get innovative and start up their own online media library which takes advantage of the super fast connections most campuses have and stream the media. They've tried partnering with commercial vendors but that doesn't seem to work as well as they'd hoped.
The music industry and movie industry and whomever else should be giving students access to as much music as they want.... they're only there for 4-5 years on average and after they graduate they are going to want to have the same type of access... but will have jobs and bank accounts to pay for it. Right now all they are doing is training them on how to use P2P and avoid getting caught.
Maybe they should limit internet access bandwidth to web and email ports but provide campusNet access to media servers with very fast connections. Make it really easy for students to access the legal stuff... then they'll only have to deal with the small minority who want to download *alternative* content. Even better, you could let students manage the content and create Channels. Let them create proposals for various formats and apply for budgets to buy the media for distribution to the rest of the campus. This would make the students appreciate the economics and would give them ownership which they will then defend against *pirates*.
Add to this and license Facebook servers and let students hook up their profiles with various channels, etc and build their cultural profile and talk about the latest whatever.
Two wrongs do not make a right... (hoping that I'm agreeing with you).
And of course there is no black market in transplant organs right? **/**Seems that with the number of people offering their organs for donation to those in need that there would be plenty to go around.**/**
The traditional argument for this response is to say: "Putting a value on the tissue of the unborn will create a black market for said tissue and encourage commercialization leading to fetus farms where young women are paid for their eggs for use in treating the elderly and the sick"
Research will use what is available as you say from 'tissue destined for disposal', but a commercial venture based on that research will not be satisfied with simply collecting what happens to be available. They will push for active harvesting to maintain a steady and predictable supply of embryonic tissue. It's a very slippery slope.
I'm imagining that if this became legal that it wouldn't be our own neighbors providing the tissue.. it would be poor people from 3rd world nations. Who knows what evils people will be capable of when the goal of the process is to create genetically anonymous donor tissue?
Yea and while their at it get rid of those dang newfangled auto-mobiles... I can never find a place to park my buggy, and them new quarter eatin' hitchin posts aren't worth the quarter... my horse just riggles his lead free in two minutes, too slick I tell ya... a good ol fashioned railroad tie is the way ta go.
It probably isn't but suddenly there is a whole new team of people looking to find them.... credit card fraud is serious... identity theft is serious. The FBI has to get involved. It's a federal crime.
Additionally there is now a vector to find and delete these accounts. If the spammers have to use 1 CC account for 1 Yahoo account it's going to be too high a cost to entry for it to be worth their time... even if they only pay a few dollars per account they get from some black market CC # wholesaler... AND if they use 1CC for multiple accounts, they get a flag raised by Yahoo internal systems as well as the issuing Bank ("why does this account have so many Yahoo IDs attached to it?) which means they will be found more quickly and when found Yahoo can put all the accounts on temporary lockdown. If it is a case of identity theft, then the victim will most likely want this action taken on their behalf (and it will be stated in a Service Agreement that it is mandatory).
This might not be popular but it would solve the problem for Yahoo and other big targets.... require a credit card. Use if just for verification. This would also help in keeping parents in the loop about what their kids are doing (at least on the big boards).
You both forgot the biggest one of all, MONEY.... for those who can exploit humanities desire to network... and for those who can actually get something useful out of these vast clouds of vague relationships without purpose.
I'm sorry, not even a robot could herd cats.... it would be like getting a room full of middle managers to agree on something.
Uh... by the time it's done processing it becomes Hydrogen and Syngas (from recombining some of the hydrogen with carbon monoxide), which is then turned into the fertilizer constituent (ammonia) and synthetic fuel... either gasoline, kerosene or diesel.
The resulting fuel is no more or less carbon heavy than the standard refined oil version. The only additional emissions occur during the gasification process itself, at which point it is a straightforward task of capturing the emissions and containing them for later geological sequestration.
If the process can be done economically (and there are billions of dollars being spent right now that says it can), then Coal-to-liquid is THE source of fuel from 2020 on, whether in the form of Hydrogen by-product or Synthetic Gasoline/Diesel + Bio-Additive and provides the fertilizer components needed to grow the Bio-Mass component of the fuel.
In the US we have generations of coal left, which is easily converted to natural gas and fertilizer components using Fischer-Tropsch method. Your point is good though as it really is just a trade off from one limited resource to the next... but if it will see us into a solar and nuclear future, then that's what we'll have to do.
I'd start investing in Fertilizer, Coal and CTL tech companies (already started actually).
Correction:
Almost all bullets have a 'jacket' which protects them from deforming during the discharge and focuses the explosion. "They also have a Casing which holds the propellant and" It gets cast off almost immediately.
Almost all bullets have a 'jacket' which protects them from deforming during the discharge and focuses the explosion. It gets cast off almost immediately.
Also the range could be set as 10 meters to 200 meters...
Also 'harmlessly' does not mean 'without effect'. You can propel anything at 100 MPH and it's going to cause some damage....
What's neat about this is that it takes waste products that would end up in a land fill and converts them to a usable form again... with a surplus over the amount of energy needed to do so. Not much, certainly not enough to supplant alternative fuel sources... but enough to drive the conversion process and power a few other machines nearby.
This will be great for factories all around and farms and other types of businesses that end up with a lot of waste material. Maybe we can make those 75% self-sustaining... which means they won't be depleting more raw materials as quickly. This is a good thing.
Even if the only use is for our Municipal trash companies to run their fleet of vehicles off of the trash they collect... we've won a huge gain. Maybe trucking companies could do the same... converting their used tires to fuel every month (they go through a lot of tires).
This is equivalent to farms using their biomass to convert to biodiesel or ethanol for use in their farm equipment. It's not a commercial enterprise but it reduces waste and improves their efficiency which means they can pass the savings on to the rest of us (or stop needing subsidies from tax dollars).
There is... it's called a paper ballot ;-p Can't get more Opensource that that (I'm a fan of electronic voting though... preferably in an election, rather than for American idol)
YES. It means your decision tree going forward is limited by where you are on the greater tree of all decisions.
NO. It means your decision tree going forward is limited by where you are on the greater tree of all decisions.
But we can't just explode thermonuclear warheads in our planets atmosphere to create an artificial greenhouse effect... Terraforming Mars is like remodeling a house from the ground up... just knock it all down and start over, whereas terraforming Earth.. is like trying to remodel your home while you live in it with a full-size family and a full regular work schedule, except we can't just put up painter's shrouds to block off the section we're working on.
Besides, this isn't about 'fixing' anything... there's nothing to fix on Mars and compared to Mars, there's nothing to fix on Earth either... we seem to be breathing fine (unless you live in LA, Hong Kong, London or any of the big parking lots we euphemistically call cities).