The idea of a GTA3 death match is nice and all, but what about an MMORPG based GTA3?
That's precisly what I thought when I first heard about this mod. Several years ago, go Slashdot, stuff that's stale.
Anyway, my thoughts were that it would work very well with the asset buying. You could make it like Monopoly, go bust and you are out. You could sell/mortgage property between players and the bank, and have a series of missions you can run at any time to make more money. Some of the missions would involve inflicting damage (i.e. cost) to opponents.
In future versions you could go the whole hog and make everything purchasable. If you aren't allied with the owner of the paint and spray; you can't use it. Certain players friendly with the local cops, less harsh punishment if you get busted. On GTA:SA rival gangs would duke it out in realtime while you aren't online.
This would create a rich gaming culture. Might be thing that actually gives me the drive to spend time in a MMORPG game; I tend to go for the quick-fix type games.
Well, it's better than "the loud, annoying twat" which I hear Americans referred to as more often here in Europe.
Well, given the US popularity in some quarters over the last two years, I'd say that was a compliment!:-) Fear mongering, freedom hating, genocidal manics with a liking for covert global domination of all natural resources is more akin to something I'd say if I really wanted to piss you off!!;-)
No. The poster pointed out your hypocracy. You cannot point out this same hypocracy in his answer, as he didn't make the same complaint. He just did the same thing you did; the thing you moaned about, not him. It's very different if he himself is not complaining.
And you'd be even more surprised how many Windows users don't even know about the right-click.
That's what I was refering to in my original post. Once someone I know new to computers has gotten to a certain point, I show them it and most never look back.:-)
Personally, I like them from a design standpoint. I like Windows style of "default" action in bold, with other relevant options next to it. When I right click on a message in my inbox, I want to see "move", "delete", "properties" etc. Maybe not all that useful for one, but when you multiselect you can tidy the inbox very quickly. If you are running over VNC/X11 as I often do, dragging can be a bit flakey.
From Larry Tesler's quote you provide: "I eventually wrote a memo that showed, point by point, that the one-button mouse could do everything that PARCs three-button mouse could do and with the same number or fewer user actions."
I'd quite like to see that memo (is it public?), because that's one of the things I believe that a two button mouse does better. I take it he meant that you could just use the full menu? To be honest, I'd argue that having a context menu was more user friendly, due to it having less but more relevant options. File/Quit is not relevant when I select a message. If you told new users that the right brings up a menu and the left selects, I reckon they'd all pick it up quite easilly. It's more a case of them not being shown the basics when they start.
Besides, in a FPS, the more buttons the better!:-)
The difference between music and video is that music can be a background activity. One can work, read/., jog, talk with friends, drive a car, etc. whilst music is playing. In contrast, video requires too much visual engagement
I concurr. I've had various phones and PDAs for at least three years that can do both. I listen to music all the time on them, yet I rarely watch video other than the "neat" factor. If I took public transport regularly I could see myself writing a script to podcast new episodes onto it, but other than that it's not much use.
My new one also has a camera, and is able to record video. That makes video playback capabilites worthwhile, but it's for entirely different reasons really, as you can review what you just shot, show it to the people in the shot etc.
for PINs that I use rarely [snip] since a thief would only have 3 tries to get the number right, and his first guess is likely to be the PIN just as it's written.
Even if you can remember the PIN, it's worth putting a fake number in your wallet so that the thief tries it and has the card confiscated by the ATM / clerk (we now use PIN instead of signing here). I've got the number 0619 "hidden" in my wallet. I wrote it so that it is difficult to tell which way is up, so it can be read as 6190 as well. There's a dot above the "0" to hint that you may have increment that number by one. Basically, there are enough "maybies" that might be my number that a "smart" thief might try. Not one of them resembles my real number whatsoever.:-)
"Having the button there" confuses them needlesly, especially when the apps are so simple in the first place.
I hear what you are saying on application design, but I've NEVER met anyone confused by two mouse buttons. If that's a problem for them, maybe Apple OS's are the helping hand they need!!
'Unsophisticated' users represent 99.9% of all computer owners, so it makes sense to cater to them.
That was not the case when the decission to go with one button was made. You can't go back and change your reasoning/justification to suit the current climate! Unless you are the US Gov. re. Iraq!!;-)
Cheers, but it's a bit limited. My PDA is pretty capable and can handle the full site, it's just the horizontal scrolling that makes things hard to read!
The best part is that they gave NO indication that they would sell your name and address to third parties, with no option to opt-out.
Here in the UK, that would be illegal under The Data Protection Act. Online spam has to be opt-in, and everything else must have an opt-out tick-box. Does the US have any equivalent law? Not that it would matter, they'd just claim that they got approval on the original phone call anyway!
Now that PSP has browser functionality, I think it's imperative for web developers to examine their sites for usability.
Why now? This has been an outstanding problem for mobile browsing for years. Anyone that has a PDA, cellphone or palmtop that has net access can attest to that. Some sites are good, and there are many link sites lists which ones are the best for PDA viewing. It's good to hear that you are actively working on supporting these for your CMS package, I just wish others would do the same!
Surprisingly, Slashdot is one of the worst; it's almost completely unusable on a PDA. You can tweak settings and get by, but you'd think this of all places would have it right!
I find the notion of CAnucks as suicide bombers to be about the most improbable notion around.
The suicide bomber story touted in the press is never the truth. They are always made to look like fundamentalist extremists recruted off the street. This is not the case; the majority are people whos lives events have gotten so bad they see no other way out. People who's mothers have been raped by soldiers; people who's wives and children have died because they could not get through a checkpoint to the hospital to give birth. People who's entire families have been wiped out by aerial bombardment.
If you did any of that to me, I'd be looking to take out as many of you as possible. If that means losing my own life (as you risk in any attack), then so be it. I'd daresay that the Canadians are just as capable of this as anyone else.
I wasn't trolling mate. Technically speaking, the iPod isn't all that great. You have a multi-gig USB harddrive in your pocket that Apple decided that you weren't trusted enough to use and they locked it down. You can't get the music off it legally. You can't carry your own data on it. I tend to buy from manufacturers that don't treat me a child. iPod: wasted potential.
What about the anti-anti-Apple zealot zealot zealots?
What, the ones that systematically modded down all my posts ont he subject. Apple is a strange one for that; if you say something bad about them, someone here will look at your posting history and try to "punish" you. I've had unrelated posts modded down for no reason, not long after I've pointed out that the iPod ain't all that...
I've tried to teach my father the keyboard shortcut for quitting an app. CMD-Q. Bless his heart, he still uses the menu every freaking time. Do you think these clueless people, such as my father, should be subjected to your "clueful" idea of computing?
I don't get you. The argument was that most users don't need the second button, therefore it should not be there. That is a bullshit argument. And what is "my clueful idea of computing"? The argument that removing the second button would be silly? Please re-read my post and let me know what you meant; I'm still trying to figure it out! "subjected"?
I agree on your point about some folk not using extra features. That's just the way it is. Keyboard shortcuts are hard for most people to remember. Some people have trouble pressing two buttons at once!!
If you don't know how to access contextual menus in the Mac OSes (and didn't think it was possible)
You need two hands. Nice design!! I regularly use by mouse in bed as the TV in my bedroom is actually a TV tuner card. So, I should now buy a cordless keyboard just in case I want to enqueue in Winamp rather than play imediately? With a contextual menu, I can do just about anything from the mouse.
Apple is the new Sony. Their iPod is this generation's walkman, and Apple is smart enough to leverage that success into other products. Apple has always been good at design.
Which is they aren't the new Sony! Apple are good at design & marketing, that's all. Sony introduced a whole new device in the Walkman opening up an entire market. Apple just ripped of other peoples ideas, deliberately crippled the functionality, then passed it to their graphic design team who did their magic.
All style, no substance. I sneer at iPod owners, yay lets all jump on a bandwagon and buy the inferiour product just because it's got a funky advert on TV. No inovation whatsoever. Really really great marketing, white headphones were an inspired touch (free advertising). This Apple fanboy stuff is pretty strange IMHO on Slashdot though, I suppose it's because they are !microsoft.
Very few applications have (or should have) the level of feature complexity that would require contextual menus for basic functionality, and multiple mouse buttons should rightly be viewed as an optional enhancement rather than an interface essential.
You don't work in GUI design, do you? Context menus are essential in complex applications, e.g. IDEs, Tech Drawing, UML design. They present a small list of operations that are relevant to that object. To think that there is only one operation you'd want is absurd. Do you expect users to click on the object, then move the mouse to the menu bar and click, then work through each of the drop-downs, find the one you want, then select it? Or you could just right-click on the object...
The right-mouse button is a great indicator on how IT literate a person is. If they don't have a clue, they don't use it.
Regarding the virgin Mary thing, why don't you do some research yourself to see what the word meant?
I have. I've discussed it with people who fall on either side of that debate. One person I spoke to was familiar with the story, and was able to elaborate on it for me. The trend was towards it not meaning "virgin".
People today quickly take a documentary as fact and don't make a point of checking facts (of course news sources do this too (ahem...Dan Rather).
No real need. It was a UK documentary, not an American-style "Tornados!!" type show. These shows are in a very different style, they have evidence etc and no "wow! bang! drama!" type presentation. He had interviews with scholars, and the guy that presented it was a very religious person himself; he was seeking to enhance his own faith (he did) but came to the conclusion that the bible should be treated as a guide, not a literal transcript. To be honest, I never really realised how many versions there are; I just assumed there were a few more than the traditional ones (Good News, King James). It's a very interesting subject.
See, that just what I mean. In my parent post, I say how people interpret things how they want. I googled for the passage you suggested and got this. From that page:
There is a remarkable animal called a "leviathan," described in the direct words of God in the 41st chapter of Job.[snip]. In fact, there is no animal living today which fits the description. Therefore, it is an extinct animal, almost certainly a great marine reptile, still surviving in the oceans of Job's day
Now, WTF? I see what you are suggesting and I think my search was bang on in terms of what you were aluding to. However, you are missing the point; the Bible is NOT GODS WORDS. It is mans words (and if you are a believer) interpreting gods actions. The history of the bible is checkered; large sections were removed to produce each of the major revisions of the text, bits were added; e.g. during the King James Directors Cut edition. It has been translated through two or three DEAD languages. You cannot interpret it to that level! Take it in spirit and try to be a good person. Anything beyond that is pervered and kind of sad.
You have given me an example where the Bible talks of dragons (literally, it's the classic description) and people have taken this to mean:
Dragons existed based on description in Job -> no longer exist -> they are extinct -> so are dinosaurs -> bible is cool with fossils!!
That's not very good logic, is it, especially given that the original version of that edition of the bible (King James) was written at a time when dragons were quite in fashion with pop culture. They got written in; that's how translation works, these languages did not have literal equivalence and translation was more of a form of interpretation. Modern languages share roots in dead languages, e.g. Latin that make them easier to understand. It's kind of like translating Russian to Chinese when there aren't any living native speakers of the language left. I'd love to see some different readings of the original documents, but I can't be bothered looking it up to be honest. I did see a documentary on the subject of the origins of the modern Bible that cast doubts on the asserion that Mary was a virgin. Apparently the word used actually means "young girl". I mean, woa, the whole Immaculate Conception / "sex is dirty" thing might have been a typo!
Lawyers NEVER translate contracts between LIVE languages. There's a reason for that. It just don't work. People who believe that the Bible is 100% Gods Word scare me. They are really easy to lead as they don't critically analyse things that they are told. George W Bush is unfortunately one of them, and has said so himself...:-(
Google has login accounts, so let logged-in users have a link saying "report spam site".
As an alternative, I'd love a cookie based version of this that you could click "ignore all results from this domain". After a couple of weeks you'd get rid of most of them on your personal browser. Make the lists sharable even. All the pagerank wannabies can do is start from scratch with new URLs.
I just pulled the following from.co.uk using the phrase in quotes:
Free Ftp Web Server - Live Web Cams People Backgrounds Powerpoint... ... Strategic Solutions for a Complex World. FTPplanet.com - A community site for users of FTP. Visit FTPplanet.com for everything FTP related.... www.hostelshop.com/ description-8-39-Free_Ftp_Web_Server.html - 28k - Cached - Similar pages
Second link is the imatrix one. Same on.com. First link goes here.
One counter-argument might run that although we might be going downhill fast in evolutionary terms, we're also going uphill very fast technologically.
Which IS evolution true to the word. It ain't all roses though, I can see a world ahead where everyone needs corrective eye surgery as bad eyesight genes run rampant as their damage can be undone and there is no longer any natural gene filter. The weak are flourishing and breeding, where as one hundred years ago they wouldn't have made it to childbearing age. Our reliance on technology will only become greater the more we use it.
It's a messed up issue. What can you do to prevent it? Nothing without breaking most moral and ethical taboos! We may actually be forced to start correcting genes in our children in the future should it start to get really bad. It's devolution of the species, but evolution of the society.
Nature often has a solution. Plagues and such like, though not very nice, can actually serve as a strenghener for the population as a whole. It is reckoned by many that Europe has a lower HIV infection rate due to the bubonic plagues. I believe that the study found that 25% of the population were resistant to HIV entirely.
So, we could be setting ourselves up for a big fall (and with our own bioengineering creating new viri...) but it'll likely all work out in the end.
Slashdot Mirror
That's precisly what I thought when I first heard about this mod. Several years ago, go Slashdot, stuff that's stale.
Anyway, my thoughts were that it would work very well with the asset buying. You could make it like Monopoly, go bust and you are out. You could sell/mortgage property between players and the bank, and have a series of missions you can run at any time to make more money. Some of the missions would involve inflicting damage (i.e. cost) to opponents.
In future versions you could go the whole hog and make everything purchasable. If you aren't allied with the owner of the paint and spray; you can't use it. Certain players friendly with the local cops, less harsh punishment if you get busted. On GTA:SA rival gangs would duke it out in realtime while you aren't online.
This would create a rich gaming culture. Might be thing that actually gives me the drive to spend time in a MMORPG game; I tend to go for the quick-fix type games.
Well, given the US popularity in some quarters over the last two years, I'd say that was a compliment! :-) Fear mongering, freedom hating, genocidal manics with a liking for covert global domination of all natural resources is more akin to something I'd say if I really wanted to piss you off!! ;-)
No. The poster pointed out your hypocracy. You cannot point out this same hypocracy in his answer, as he didn't make the same complaint. He just did the same thing you did; the thing you moaned about, not him. It's very different if he himself is not complaining.
That's what I was refering to in my original post. Once someone I know new to computers has gotten to a certain point, I show them it and most never look back. :-)
Personally, I like them from a design standpoint. I like Windows style of "default" action in bold, with other relevant options next to it. When I right click on a message in my inbox, I want to see "move", "delete", "properties" etc. Maybe not all that useful for one, but when you multiselect you can tidy the inbox very quickly. If you are running over VNC/X11 as I often do, dragging can be a bit flakey.
From Larry Tesler's quote you provide: "I eventually wrote a memo that showed, point by point, that the one-button mouse could do everything that PARCs three-button mouse could do and with the same number or fewer user actions."
I'd quite like to see that memo (is it public?), because that's one of the things I believe that a two button mouse does better. I take it he meant that you could just use the full menu? To be honest, I'd argue that having a context menu was more user friendly, due to it having less but more relevant options. File/Quit is not relevant when I select a message. If you told new users that the right brings up a menu and the left selects, I reckon they'd all pick it up quite easilly. It's more a case of them not being shown the basics when they start.
Besides, in a FPS, the more buttons the better! :-)
I concurr. I've had various phones and PDAs for at least three years that can do both. I listen to music all the time on them, yet I rarely watch video other than the "neat" factor. If I took public transport regularly I could see myself writing a script to podcast new episodes onto it, but other than that it's not much use.
My new one also has a camera, and is able to record video. That makes video playback capabilites worthwhile, but it's for entirely different reasons really, as you can review what you just shot, show it to the people in the shot etc.
Even if you can remember the PIN, it's worth putting a fake number in your wallet so that the thief tries it and has the card confiscated by the ATM / clerk (we now use PIN instead of signing here). I've got the number 0619 "hidden" in my wallet. I wrote it so that it is difficult to tell which way is up, so it can be read as 6190 as well. There's a dot above the "0" to hint that you may have increment that number by one. Basically, there are enough "maybies" that might be my number that a "smart" thief might try. Not one of them resembles my real number whatsoever. :-)
I hear what you are saying on application design, but I've NEVER met anyone confused by two mouse buttons. If that's a problem for them, maybe Apple OS's are the helping hand they need!!
'Unsophisticated' users represent 99.9% of all computer owners, so it makes sense to cater to them.
That was not the case when the decission to go with one button was made. You can't go back and change your reasoning/justification to suit the current climate! Unless you are the US Gov. re. Iraq!! ;-)
Cheers, but it's a bit limited. My PDA is pretty capable and can handle the full site, it's just the horizontal scrolling that makes things hard to read!
Here in the UK, that would be illegal under The Data Protection Act. Online spam has to be opt-in, and everything else must have an opt-out tick-box. Does the US have any equivalent law? Not that it would matter, they'd just claim that they got approval on the original phone call anyway!
I thought that the fact he launched it by hand was pretty cool. Would be great to know that you had thrown an object into orbit!!
Why now? This has been an outstanding problem for mobile browsing for years. Anyone that has a PDA, cellphone or palmtop that has net access can attest to that. Some sites are good, and there are many link sites lists which ones are the best for PDA viewing. It's good to hear that you are actively working on supporting these for your CMS package, I just wish others would do the same!
Surprisingly, Slashdot is one of the worst; it's almost completely unusable on a PDA. You can tweak settings and get by, but you'd think this of all places would have it right!
Looks like they aren't coming out any time soon:
link
If you upload them to the internet, they'll arrest you. Happened a while back.
UPDATE While looking for a link to the story, I found out that the guy died in prison a couple of weeks ago...!
The suicide bomber story touted in the press is never the truth. They are always made to look like fundamentalist extremists recruted off the street. This is not the case; the majority are people whos lives events have gotten so bad they see no other way out. People who's mothers have been raped by soldiers; people who's wives and children have died because they could not get through a checkpoint to the hospital to give birth. People who's entire families have been wiped out by aerial bombardment.
If you did any of that to me, I'd be looking to take out as many of you as possible. If that means losing my own life (as you risk in any attack), then so be it. I'd daresay that the Canadians are just as capable of this as anyone else.
I wasn't trolling mate. Technically speaking, the iPod isn't all that great. You have a multi-gig USB harddrive in your pocket that Apple decided that you weren't trusted enough to use and they locked it down. You can't get the music off it legally. You can't carry your own data on it. I tend to buy from manufacturers that don't treat me a child. iPod: wasted potential.
What, the ones that systematically modded down all my posts ont he subject. Apple is a strange one for that; if you say something bad about them, someone here will look at your posting history and try to "punish" you. I've had unrelated posts modded down for no reason, not long after I've pointed out that the iPod ain't all that...
I don't get you. The argument was that most users don't need the second button, therefore it should not be there. That is a bullshit argument. And what is "my clueful idea of computing"? The argument that removing the second button would be silly? Please re-read my post and let me know what you meant; I'm still trying to figure it out! "subjected"?
I agree on your point about some folk not using extra features. That's just the way it is. Keyboard shortcuts are hard for most people to remember. Some people have trouble pressing two buttons at once!!
If you don't know how to access contextual menus in the Mac OSes (and didn't think it was possible)
You need two hands. Nice design!! I regularly use by mouse in bed as the TV in my bedroom is actually a TV tuner card. So, I should now buy a cordless keyboard just in case I want to enqueue in Winamp rather than play imediately? With a contextual menu, I can do just about anything from the mouse.
So therefore all computer mice should be crippled just to remove a button that some users don't use? Good argument...
Having the button there does no harm whatsoever.
Which is they aren't the new Sony! Apple are good at design & marketing, that's all. Sony introduced a whole new device in the Walkman opening up an entire market. Apple just ripped of other peoples ideas, deliberately crippled the functionality, then passed it to their graphic design team who did their magic.
All style, no substance. I sneer at iPod owners, yay lets all jump on a bandwagon and buy the inferiour product just because it's got a funky advert on TV. No inovation whatsoever. Really really great marketing, white headphones were an inspired touch (free advertising). This Apple fanboy stuff is pretty strange IMHO on Slashdot though, I suppose it's because they are !microsoft.
You don't work in GUI design, do you? Context menus are essential in complex applications, e.g. IDEs, Tech Drawing, UML design. They present a small list of operations that are relevant to that object. To think that there is only one operation you'd want is absurd. Do you expect users to click on the object, then move the mouse to the menu bar and click, then work through each of the drop-downs, find the one you want, then select it? Or you could just right-click on the object...
The right-mouse button is a great indicator on how IT literate a person is. If they don't have a clue, they don't use it.
I have. I've discussed it with people who fall on either side of that debate. One person I spoke to was familiar with the story, and was able to elaborate on it for me. The trend was towards it not meaning "virgin".
People today quickly take a documentary as fact and don't make a point of checking facts (of course news sources do this too (ahem...Dan Rather).
No real need. It was a UK documentary, not an American-style "Tornados!!" type show. These shows are in a very different style, they have evidence etc and no "wow! bang! drama!" type presentation. He had interviews with scholars, and the guy that presented it was a very religious person himself; he was seeking to enhance his own faith (he did) but came to the conclusion that the bible should be treated as a guide, not a literal transcript. To be honest, I never really realised how many versions there are; I just assumed there were a few more than the traditional ones (Good News, King James). It's a very interesting subject.
See, that just what I mean. In my parent post, I say how people interpret things how they want. I googled for the passage you suggested and got this. From that page:
Now, WTF? I see what you are suggesting and I think my search was bang on in terms of what you were aluding to. However, you are missing the point; the Bible is NOT GODS WORDS. It is mans words (and if you are a believer) interpreting gods actions. The history of the bible is checkered; large sections were removed to produce each of the major revisions of the text, bits were added; e.g. during the King James Directors Cut edition. It has been translated through two or three DEAD languages. You cannot interpret it to that level! Take it in spirit and try to be a good person. Anything beyond that is pervered and kind of sad.
You have given me an example where the Bible talks of dragons (literally, it's the classic description) and people have taken this to mean:
Dragons existed based on description in Job -> no longer exist -> they are extinct -> so are dinosaurs -> bible is cool with fossils!!
That's not very good logic, is it, especially given that the original version of that edition of the bible (King James) was written at a time when dragons were quite in fashion with pop culture. They got written in; that's how translation works, these languages did not have literal equivalence and translation was more of a form of interpretation. Modern languages share roots in dead languages, e.g. Latin that make them easier to understand. It's kind of like translating Russian to Chinese when there aren't any living native speakers of the language left. I'd love to see some different readings of the original documents, but I can't be bothered looking it up to be honest. I did see a documentary on the subject of the origins of the modern Bible that cast doubts on the asserion that Mary was a virgin. Apparently the word used actually means "young girl". I mean, woa, the whole Immaculate Conception / "sex is dirty" thing might have been a typo!
Lawyers NEVER translate contracts between LIVE languages. There's a reason for that. It just don't work. People who believe that the Bible is 100% Gods Word scare me. They are really easy to lead as they don't critically analyse things that they are told. George W Bush is unfortunately one of them, and has said so himself... :-(
As an alternative, I'd love a cookie based version of this that you could click "ignore all results from this domain". After a couple of weeks you'd get rid of most of them on your personal browser. Make the lists sharable even. All the pagerank wannabies can do is start from scratch with new URLs.
Second link is the imatrix one. Same on .com. First link goes here.
Which IS evolution true to the word. It ain't all roses though, I can see a world ahead where everyone needs corrective eye surgery as bad eyesight genes run rampant as their damage can be undone and there is no longer any natural gene filter. The weak are flourishing and breeding, where as one hundred years ago they wouldn't have made it to childbearing age. Our reliance on technology will only become greater the more we use it.
It's a messed up issue. What can you do to prevent it? Nothing without breaking most moral and ethical taboos! We may actually be forced to start correcting genes in our children in the future should it start to get really bad. It's devolution of the species, but evolution of the society.
Nature often has a solution. Plagues and such like, though not very nice, can actually serve as a strenghener for the population as a whole. It is reckoned by many that Europe has a lower HIV infection rate due to the bubonic plagues. I believe that the study found that 25% of the population were resistant to HIV entirely.
So, we could be setting ourselves up for a big fall (and with our own bioengineering creating new viri...) but it'll likely all work out in the end.