Bad example. Japan doesn't want anyone (U.S. or otherwise) entering their country at will and damaging their domestic industries. You know, like we let them do to us. I know you want to show that there's a specific bias against U.S. products, but you'll have to do better than that
Alright, that's a fair observation. It's an anti-foreign thing. I can buy that. That's weird thing for Americans to grasp, as acceptance of foreign is so entrenched that I've been to dinner with people bitching about Japanese cars and Mexicans, as they drive their Toyotas and order burritos, corn chips and salsa. In America everything is foreign.
Well, I think it's not so much an expression of xenophobia (although that may be a factor, I really don't know) as it is a recognition that other countries and their corporate overlords have their own agendas, and that allowing said countries to decimate your key industries is a bad idea. I wish we'd played matters a bit closer to the vest ourselves, but we didn't and now we're paying a price for it.
Acceptance of foreign, as you put it, is something any nation which has achieved a level of international trade comparable to the U.S. has to achieve. Those foreigners are people who invest in us, buy our products, and ultimately help pay our salaries. So it's really hard to justify a generalized anti-foreign attitude under such circumstances. I know that runs contrary to the apparently popular belief among (ahem) foreigners that Americans are all xenophobic and hate anyone who wasn't born here. That's really not true, although I must admit I'm taking a dislike to my Hispanic next-door neighbor who's belting out a couple of kilowatts of dance music at two a.m. every night. But it's not because he's Hispanic... it's because he's a dick.
Wasn't always that way, of course... my grandfather, back in the day, wouldn't allow any "japanese junk" in his house. To be fair, back in those days most of what the Japanese manufactured was junk... that's certainly changed.
Why do people persist in propagating the myth that there's cultural opposition to US products? Apple absolutely dominates the MP3 category with the iPod here, and the Macbooks sell like gangbusters.
US cars don't sell well because a) they don't sell well in the US either b) half of the overseas models don't even come in RHD versions. Of course they don't sell.
I won't consider an iPhone for all the reasons others have listed. Why would I intentionally saddle myself with a phone that has fewer features - ALOT fewer - than my current Softbank model? A model that's 1.5 years old now?
Why do people persist in propagating the myth that there's cultural opposition to US products?
Because its not a myth. By and large, it is easy to bring goods into the USA because the USA has a tradition of a generally free trading country. Do a google and see what's involved into bringing goods from the USA into Japan, and then see what's involved in vice versa. If they wanted to bring in more competition and other goods, you'd see those doors being opened. But they aren't.
Bad example. Japan doesn't want anyone (U.S. or otherwise) entering their country at will and damaging their domestic industries. You know, like we let them do to us. I know you want to show that there's a specific bias against U.S. products, but you'll have to do better than that.
How can such an insulting bullshit be moderated informative??
This proves a major prejudice about Americans: Most of you don't know shit about the world (outside of your borders).
But I still hope, that there are some here who will fix that. After all, I thought Slashdot users had an above average intelligence.
Wow! Nice job demonstrating the good will and tolerance of our European neighbors. Well, sorry if I offended you but I have a major sinus infection, I'm drugged out of my skull and was a few beers down when I wrote that, and I misremembered something. So shoot me. Frankly, the history of the French legal system is about as interesting to me as I'm sure the laws of my home State would be to you. That is to say, not very. Tell you what, you demonstrate your knowledge of the U.S. legal system, and we'll grade you on your performance. Remember, we're a nation of judgmental boors who will formulate our opinion of your entire culture by your response.
Of course, from your reply, may I assume that all Europeans are stuck-up intolerant pricks who consider themselves superior to everyone else on the planet? People who honestly believe that their own cultures are so important to everyone else that we spend all our time researching and studying it? I even said, "as I understand it", which was intended as a disclaimer that I wasn't presenting my information as established fact. Too subtle for you, I guess.
I mean, as long as we're going by statistical samples of one, I'm going to judge all Europeans by the same metric by which you are judging us.
Seriously, artists are not all automatically on the side of big media. And you're right: they probably saw this as a way to make a point, that they don't like where he's trying to take copyright.
Of course, offering a single Euro as compensation was kinda ridiculous.
Also as a systems administrator, i like gui's, generally good ones allow me to get my job done faster, not slower, if I have to, I'll drop to cli, but in a good gui you don't have to, if the gui is written well for usability, you'll be able to cover 95% of what you need to do, and beening able to do that quickly and efficiently is the important thing
Can it be Flash based? I've got some cool ideas involving fancy animated text effects and transitions that would be really useful for a router interface.
Gah. I think I'm going to be sick. Yeah, you earned that +5 funny.
Sure Tomato is nice - as long as you can still get hardware for it.
Well, Tomato is a GPL'ed product, so you could take it and update it if you wanted to. But that's not the point. I was just noting that Tomato is an excellent example of a clean, minimalist GUI. He puts in a fair amount of glitz, true, but it's not gratuitious. And, since this contest is all about the user interface, that seemed appropriate.
The thing is, GUI design is a complex art, one that takes a long time to learn to do well, so its hard to be good both at visual interfaces and the often very complex code that they control.
You hit the nail on the head. It's an art, and that means that, when all is said and done, it's the guy with the eye who polishes the job. Programmers can follow all the user-interface design rules laid down in the multitude of books on the subject, but if they don't have the touch, what they'll come up with may be functional, but will still look like crap. It's as inevitable as the tide. Good coding can be an art as well... it is by no means always thus, but some developers do carry their work into the realm of true art.
Look at the history of video game development. Early products were as you describe: often designed by single coders, or maybe a team of coders. That worked, because the hardware was too crude to allow an artist to do much with it, although some companies did hire animators. Blocky programmer-drawn graphics were acceptable because that was about the limit of the equipment. However, as the resolution, color space, and processing power of graphics systems improved, you began to see specialization occur in game development. Much as happened in motion pictures decades before, the evolving complexity of the products demanded an expanding team effort. Designers, coders, artists, animators, level designers, writers, play testers, quality control testers, a whole host of wildly different disciplines are now required to produce a single game.
It's no different in the world of Web development. You need a team, with people capable of handling overall design responsibility, documentation (something coders are notoriously bad at doing), back-end requirements, the GUI, and many others. It's easy for developers who have no talent for user interface work to dismiss such as unnecessary glitz. Understandable, but entirely wrong when talking about software that is marketed or used by the general public (like a Web site.) Furthermore, in the real world people (especially people who write big checks) are impressed by a polished, well-written GUI.
Personally, I've spent almost thirty years in this business, and I started out doing largely embedded-type stuff for the game industry, and eventually got into doing higher-level graphics and artwork. Then I got into manufacturing and control systems, and discovered that users like software that is attractive, not overly-complicated for the problem it purports to solve, and above all does the job. The years I had spent learning graphic techniques paid off handsomely during that time, since my competitors generally couldn't draw their way out of a shoebox.
In any event, I found that while I had successfully worn a number of hats as an application developer over the years, it was getting harder and harder to be a solo act. So, nowadays I'm not, I work with lots of other people, and I've found that my skill set is complementary to many of them. It works out well, if you have a good team.
Bah... shiny gui painted over an ancient half-proprietary sdk pulled straight out of the stone age and limited to a few broadcom based router platforms.
Fine for the typical end user but not exactly suitable for many of current devices.
Sure, but this contest appears to be all about the GUI... and how do you define "the typical end user"?
I don't think anyone here has enough computers at home to need IPv6. I mean, if you have more than 253(*) computers in your house, you have more problems than needing IPv6.
(*) Number of possible nodes on a Class C subnet minus the router itself.
The only reason I could see myself having to move to IPV6 would be if my ISP forces me to.
I agree. However, that makes it better than 99% of the open source offerings out there, and 100% better than the commercial firmware offerings from the likes of Linksys. I mean, there's a reason that Tomato is so popular.
We have two: Justin Frankel and Bram Cohen. Of the two, I'd say Frankel more greatly resembles Robin Hood: he deliberately cut loose with Gnutella on the even of the AOL / Time Warner merger.
P2P file sharing is designed to cause network congestion
What does this mean? File sharing is designed to share files. Short-sighted ISP management, on the other hand, is guaranteed to cause network congestion.
Idiots. P2P is the killer app that has justified the expense of a high-speed connection for untold millions of people, and all they can think about is killing it.
Sorry, but I write too much on this issue to keep writing out all those names.
Just use the catchall term Them. Of course, to those of us who grew up on 1950's B-grade sci-fi movies, that brings to mind hordes of giant radioactive ants consuming everything in sight.
Slashdot Mirror
Bad example. Japan doesn't want anyone (U.S. or otherwise) entering their country at will and damaging their domestic industries. You know, like we let them do to us. I know you want to show that there's a specific bias against U.S. products, but you'll have to do better than that
Alright, that's a fair observation. It's an anti-foreign thing. I can buy that. That's weird thing for Americans to grasp, as acceptance of foreign is so entrenched that I've been to dinner with people bitching about Japanese cars and Mexicans, as they drive their Toyotas and order burritos, corn chips and salsa. In America everything is foreign.
Well, I think it's not so much an expression of xenophobia (although that may be a factor, I really don't know) as it is a recognition that other countries and their corporate overlords have their own agendas, and that allowing said countries to decimate your key industries is a bad idea. I wish we'd played matters a bit closer to the vest ourselves, but we didn't and now we're paying a price for it.
... it's because he's a dick.
... my grandfather, back in the day, wouldn't allow any "japanese junk" in his house. To be fair, back in those days most of what the Japanese manufactured was junk ... that's certainly changed.
Acceptance of foreign, as you put it, is something any nation which has achieved a level of international trade comparable to the U.S. has to achieve. Those foreigners are people who invest in us, buy our products, and ultimately help pay our salaries. So it's really hard to justify a generalized anti-foreign attitude under such circumstances. I know that runs contrary to the apparently popular belief among (ahem) foreigners that Americans are all xenophobic and hate anyone who wasn't born here. That's really not true, although I must admit I'm taking a dislike to my Hispanic next-door neighbor who's belting out a couple of kilowatts of dance music at two a.m. every night. But it's not because he's Hispanic
Wasn't always that way, of course
Those of us who have no horse in this race should probably just stay as far away from the commotion as possible.
Truer word were never written. Then again, I'm one of those people who will probably end up with an Android G2 just because it isn't an iPhone.
Why do people persist in propagating the myth that there's cultural opposition to US products? Apple absolutely dominates the MP3 category with the iPod here, and the Macbooks sell like gangbusters.
US cars don't sell well because a) they don't sell well in the US either b) half of the overseas models don't even come in RHD versions. Of course they don't sell.
I won't consider an iPhone for all the reasons others have listed. Why would I intentionally saddle myself with a phone that has fewer features - ALOT fewer - than my current Softbank model? A model that's 1.5 years old now?
Why do people persist in propagating the myth that there's cultural opposition to US products?
Because its not a myth. By and large, it is easy to bring goods into the USA because the USA has a tradition of a generally free trading country. Do a google and see what's involved into bringing goods from the USA into Japan, and then see what's involved in vice versa. If they wanted to bring in more competition and other goods, you'd see those doors being opened. But they aren't.
Bad example. Japan doesn't want anyone (U.S. or otherwise) entering their country at will and damaging their domestic industries. You know, like we let them do to us. I know you want to show that there's a specific bias against U.S. products, but you'll have to do better than that.
He'll just start mooching off his neighbor's wifi.
And if that fails, he can mooch off the neighbor's wife.
How can such an insulting bullshit be moderated informative??
This proves a major prejudice about Americans: Most of you don't know shit about the world (outside of your borders).
But I still hope, that there are some here who will fix that. After all, I thought Slashdot users had an above average intelligence.
Wow! Nice job demonstrating the good will and tolerance of our European neighbors. Well, sorry if I offended you but I have a major sinus infection, I'm drugged out of my skull and was a few beers down when I wrote that, and I misremembered something. So shoot me. Frankly, the history of the French legal system is about as interesting to me as I'm sure the laws of my home State would be to you. That is to say, not very. Tell you what, you demonstrate your knowledge of the U.S. legal system, and we'll grade you on your performance. Remember, we're a nation of judgmental boors who will formulate our opinion of your entire culture by your response.
Of course, from your reply, may I assume that all Europeans are stuck-up intolerant pricks who consider themselves superior to everyone else on the planet? People who honestly believe that their own cultures are so important to everyone else that we spend all our time researching and studying it? I even said, "as I understand it", which was intended as a disclaimer that I wasn't presenting my information as established fact. Too subtle for you, I guess.
I mean, as long as we're going by statistical samples of one, I'm going to judge all Europeans by the same metric by which you are judging us.
Deal with it.
"guilty until proven innocent"
Well, as I understand it, that is one of the guiding principles of French law. The burden of proof is on the accused.
Maybe they don't like his agenda?
Seriously, artists are not all automatically on the side of big media. And you're right: they probably saw this as a way to make a point, that they don't like where he's trying to take copyright.
Of course, offering a single Euro as compensation was kinda ridiculous.
Couldn't agree with your more.
Also as a systems administrator, i like gui's, generally good ones allow me to get my job done faster, not slower, if I have to, I'll drop to cli, but in a good gui you don't have to, if the gui is written well for usability, you'll be able to cover 95% of what you need to do, and beening able to do that quickly and efficiently is the important thing
I take it that you're a big fan of Regedit.
I'm going to become rich and famous after i invent a device that allows you to stab people in the face over the internet -[SA]HatfulOfHollow
Bah. Why send a machine to do a man's job? If you want something done right ... do it yourself.
Tomato is garbage. OpenWrt is a full featured Linux distro.
Ever heard of using the right tool for the job?
I heard someone say that "Nobody ever made statues of committees".
Well, there was that whole Iwo Jima thing.
Can it be Flash based? I've got some cool ideas involving fancy animated text effects and transitions that would be really useful for a router interface.
Gah. I think I'm going to be sick. Yeah, you earned that +5 funny.
Sure Tomato is nice - as long as you can still get hardware for it.
Well, Tomato is a GPL'ed product, so you could take it and update it if you wanted to. But that's not the point. I was just noting that Tomato is an excellent example of a clean, minimalist GUI. He puts in a fair amount of glitz, true, but it's not gratuitious. And, since this contest is all about the user interface, that seemed appropriate.
The thing is, GUI design is a complex art, one that takes a long time to learn to do well, so its hard to be good both at visual interfaces and the often very complex code that they control.
You hit the nail on the head. It's an art, and that means that, when all is said and done, it's the guy with the eye who polishes the job. Programmers can follow all the user-interface design rules laid down in the multitude of books on the subject, but if they don't have the touch, what they'll come up with may be functional, but will still look like crap. It's as inevitable as the tide. Good coding can be an art as well ... it is by no means always thus, but some developers do carry their work into the realm of true art.
Look at the history of video game development. Early products were as you describe: often designed by single coders, or maybe a team of coders. That worked, because the hardware was too crude to allow an artist to do much with it, although some companies did hire animators. Blocky programmer-drawn graphics were acceptable because that was about the limit of the equipment. However, as the resolution, color space, and processing power of graphics systems improved, you began to see specialization occur in game development. Much as happened in motion pictures decades before, the evolving complexity of the products demanded an expanding team effort. Designers, coders, artists, animators, level designers, writers, play testers, quality control testers, a whole host of wildly different disciplines are now required to produce a single game.
It's no different in the world of Web development. You need a team, with people capable of handling overall design responsibility, documentation (something coders are notoriously bad at doing), back-end requirements, the GUI, and many others. It's easy for developers who have no talent for user interface work to dismiss such as unnecessary glitz. Understandable, but entirely wrong when talking about software that is marketed or used by the general public (like a Web site.) Furthermore, in the real world people (especially people who write big checks) are impressed by a polished, well-written GUI.
Personally, I've spent almost thirty years in this business, and I started out doing largely embedded-type stuff for the game industry, and eventually got into doing higher-level graphics and artwork. Then I got into manufacturing and control systems, and discovered that users like software that is attractive, not overly-complicated for the problem it purports to solve, and above all does the job. The years I had spent learning graphic techniques paid off handsomely during that time, since my competitors generally couldn't draw their way out of a shoebox.
In any event, I found that while I had successfully worn a number of hats as an application developer over the years, it was getting harder and harder to be a solo act. So, nowadays I'm not, I work with lots of other people, and I've found that my skill set is complementary to many of them. It works out well, if you have a good team.
Bah... shiny gui painted over an ancient half-proprietary sdk pulled straight out of the stone age and limited to a few broadcom based router platforms.
Fine for the typical end user but not exactly suitable for many of current devices.
Sure, but this contest appears to be all about the GUI ... and how do you define "the typical end user"?
So why don't the guys who make Tomato port their UI over to OpenWRT and enter it in contest?
Actually, it's one guy. He was heavily involved in a number of other open-source alternate firmware packages, before coming up with Tomato.
I don't think anyone here has enough computers at home to need IPv6. I mean, if you have more than 253(*) computers in your house, you have more problems than needing IPv6.
(*) Number of possible nodes on a Class C subnet minus the router itself.
The only reason I could see myself having to move to IPV6 would be if my ISP forces me to.
Tomato is 99% of the way there on the UI
I agree. However, that makes it better than 99% of the open source offerings out there, and 100% better than the commercial firmware offerings from the likes of Linksys. I mean, there's a reason that Tomato is so popular.
Tomato for the win!
I say again: open pipe.
Open, fat pipe, which is, after all, the reason we all have broadband.
Time for an information age robin hood?
We have two: Justin Frankel and Bram Cohen. Of the two, I'd say Frankel more greatly resembles Robin Hood: he deliberately cut loose with Gnutella on the even of the AOL / Time Warner merger.
I'd like to see Bell and Videotron being split into an ISP and Other business.
I'd like to see their senior executives split into a couple different pieces too.
P2P file sharing is designed to cause network congestion
What does this mean? File sharing is designed to share files. Short-sighted ISP management, on the other hand, is guaranteed to cause network congestion.
Idiots. P2P is the killer app that has justified the expense of a high-speed connection for untold millions of people, and all they can think about is killing it.
I repeat. Idiots.
Until of course the DRM was killing it as we all knew it would, so it went DRM-free.
Well, to be fair Jobs never wanted DRM in the first place. His goal was to sell hardware, lots of it, and DRM was not helpful in that regard.
Sorry, but I write too much on this issue to keep writing out all those names.
Just use the catchall term Them. Of course, to those of us who grew up on 1950's B-grade sci-fi movies, that brings to mind hordes of giant radioactive ants consuming everything in sight.
I can live with that.