I'm wondering if slashdot should simply separate the server from the reader similar to what was done with Usenet News, and let the user community write their own interfaces?
...because, this strategy worked so very well for Blackberry.
That said, I can't think of a reason why Microsoft should not integrate Android applications, provided the results gives some reasonable user experience. I suspect that "supporting" Android applications where the user has to put up with significant numbers of crashes and hangs, rendering errors, screen geometry issues and so forth would actually hurt the platform further.
> why the hell they just don't walk their kids to school, I don't know ; far safer for everyone!)
Good question. The answer probably depends on the area. My area is a suburb that started as farm land, and the main arterials are former farm roads -- two lane blacktop with really deep ditches on the sides (no storm drains) and no sidewalks. So the only way to walk to either the elementary, middle, or high schools in my area is along the edge a busy road.
In true bureaucratic fashion, the city "solved" this by mandating that any new roads have full storm drains, curbs and sidewalks. So you have all of these as-yet-unoccupied or started but abandoned developments, further out built during the dot com boom, that have sidewalks, while in the populated areas cars are still zigging around children walking in the road.
I've argued this incessantly at planning meetings to no avail. The upshot is, even if you live six blocks away, the safest way to transport your kid to and from school is by car. Your mileage may vary, but that's the way it is here.
...I see one (1) person who likes the new look, one (1) person who says he doesn't like it but will get used to it, and a whole lot who express various temperatures of hate with varying levels of detail.
So, the new solution is liked by a vanishingly small minority and tolerated by an equally small minority, and hated by just about everyone else.
And so, of course it will be adopted as is.
I hear tell that Usenet is still up, although it's mostly a collection of sad, empty structures now. Perhaps we should give it another try. One advantage was that you could choose your news reader, and have the information presented to you in the fashion you wished.
Is it possible that the new site is meant to work on both mobile devices and PCs? This would explain why the new interface appears "dumbed down", and why less information is displayed. If in fact, it's intended to be primarily used with devices that have less precise GUI manipulation and fewer resources, this may explain some of what we're seeing.
... I wonder, by remote command? What's the mechanism? I don't even bother asking how secure, because the value of a secret increases in proportion to it's usefulness, and past the point where risk balances gain, it will get loose.
> No, it is not "Free Speech". It is criminal informant behavior.
Hm? Moderate speeding is not criminal behavior. You have to get into reckless driving territory before it would be treated as such. I don't hear anyone saying they'd flash their lights for someone going 100+ in a school zone.
> Philosophically, it's like telling a drug dealer "hide your stash because a cop is coming."
I'm... not sure I agree. If the drug dealer hides his stash, the stash still exists and he is still committing a crime. If you warn someone to slow down, after they are at or under the speed limit, they are no longer committing a crime. Also, from a philosophical viewpoint, if we believe what our law enforcement officials tell us, having the driver slow down also makes everyone safer, so it would be a good thing for people in general for you to warn the driver. In fact, the only people who do not benefit from the warning are the people who stand to gain monetarily from the fine.
Also, this appears to fly in the face of public assurances that speed traps make us safer because their presence make people slow down. If we don't know about the presence of speed traps, if in fact it's illegal for us to be made aware of their presence, how does their presence make us safer? Or is this in fact proof that the sole purpose of speed traps is revenue enhancement?
Apparently, you'd be charged with warning someone that police were in the area. I can imagine that the logic would be, it's just like stealing, when your actions prevent the city from collecting fines.
...although renewable energy definitely has its place (I have solar panels supplementing grid usage), a totally renewable energy society would, necessarily, need to contain significantly fewer people.
This is where I'm in a quandary. I don't agree with Ham's position, but Nye sometimes comes off as a bit of a condescending asshole, and I confess I'd enjoy seeing him flummoxed. Just too bad it has to be on this issue.
> And I'm paying 40% more than I was before with three times the deductible.
That's interesting... that's almost exactly the numbers we saw. Wife and I both saw our company insurance dropped when Obamacare went into effect, and the replacement was a little bit more than 40% more expensive with almost exactly 3 times the deductible, for a much smaller pool of doctors. I'm told that the strategy is to live off your FSA for the first 3 - 4 months of a calendar year until your deductible gets paid up.
Apparently, you and I are in some category that makes us obligated to pick up the slack for the ones who saved money. I wonder if it's based on tax returns?
Ah, yes, the huge variety of laptop choices without Windows: 3 different rebadged Clevo models with terrible keyboards, and extremely pricy Apple laptops requiring you to pay for an OSX licence.
Speaking of that, what seems to be happening in the enterprise is that Apple is taking advantage of Microsoft's perceived lack of direction to gain a firmer foothold. Although in the past Apple presence in the enterprise was driven somewhat unsuccessfully from the bottom up, now it's being driven from the top down -- execs with iphones and ipads who want to carry those cool paper thin macbooks, leaving it to IT to find a way to make everything work. And we are, for the most part. This is not the year of Linux on the desktop, but it is the year of more Apple products in meeting rooms. iPads do really well at rendering those cool graphs that execs like so much, and the devices are cool and elegant looking.
And everything Microsoft does -- Win8.1, Surface 2, just seems to make things worse.
> You create a small new feature, and the app breaks down in unexpected ways. You fix a bug, and new bugs pop up all over the place.
In other words, practically any homegrown project you're hired as a contractor to fix. The bad news is you're in for that slimy feeling of traversing and fully understanding someone else's broken code. You're also probably in for some late hours rewriting the problematic parts. (Whether this is good or bad news is a matter of opinion.) The good news is people tend to make the same mistakes the same way, and once you fix this, you probably will get more work fixing this person's other broken code.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm wondering if slashdot should simply separate the server from the reader similar to what was done with Usenet News, and let the user community write their own interfaces?
That said, I can't think of a reason why Microsoft should not integrate Android applications, provided the results gives some reasonable user experience. I suspect that "supporting" Android applications where the user has to put up with significant numbers of crashes and hangs, rendering errors, screen geometry issues and so forth would actually hurt the platform further.
And ... you supported this planning madness by buying property there. Good grounds for being upset.
There is planning madness pretty much everywhere. I got on the committee and tried to change it. What did you do?
> why the hell they just don't walk their kids to school, I don't know ; far safer for everyone!)
Good question. The answer probably depends on the area. My area is a suburb that started as farm land, and the main arterials are former farm roads -- two lane blacktop with really deep ditches on the sides (no storm drains) and no sidewalks. So the only way to walk to either the elementary, middle, or high schools in my area is along the edge a busy road.
In true bureaucratic fashion, the city "solved" this by mandating that any new roads have full storm drains, curbs and sidewalks. So you have all of these as-yet-unoccupied or started but abandoned developments, further out built during the dot com boom, that have sidewalks, while in the populated areas cars are still zigging around children walking in the road.
I've argued this incessantly at planning meetings to no avail. The upshot is, even if you live six blocks away, the safest way to transport your kid to and from school is by car. Your mileage may vary, but that's the way it is here.
That thing still around?
I'm still on hold trying to cancel my account.
I wouldn't expect anything less.
Good point.
Do the cops themselves actually know why they're parked up? Not necessarily.
Busy junction? Good place to sit and watch for people driving dangerously, without tax, insurance, seat belts ...
> Really? Who could think that breaking an article in the middle of a sentence with "Read More" is a good idea?
I think they're doing it because that's what Facebook does.
I second this. Articles don't exist for the summary, which is often just plain wrong. It's the comments that makes Slashdot.
> "We've had only a few major redesigns since 1997; we think it's time for another."
Clearly, the great majority of your users do *not* think it's time for another redesign.
This makes me wonder if perhaps you don't have enough to do?
So, the new solution is liked by a vanishingly small minority and tolerated by an equally small minority, and hated by just about everyone else.
And so, of course it will be adopted as is.
I hear tell that Usenet is still up, although it's mostly a collection of sad, empty structures now. Perhaps we should give it another try. One advantage was that you could choose your news reader, and have the information presented to you in the fashion you wished.
Is it possible that the new site is meant to work on both mobile devices and PCs? This would explain why the new interface appears "dumbed down", and why less information is displayed. If in fact, it's intended to be primarily used with devices that have less precise GUI manipulation and fewer resources, this may explain some of what we're seeing.
> No, it is not "Free Speech". It is criminal informant behavior.
Hm? Moderate speeding is not criminal behavior. You have to get into reckless driving territory before it would be treated as such. I don't hear anyone saying they'd flash their lights for someone going 100+ in a school zone.
> Philosophically, it's like telling a drug dealer "hide your stash because a cop is coming."
I'm ... not sure I agree. If the drug dealer hides his stash, the stash still exists and he is still committing a crime. If you warn someone to slow down, after they are at or under the speed limit, they are no longer committing a crime. Also, from a philosophical viewpoint, if we believe what our law enforcement officials tell us, having the driver slow down also makes everyone safer, so it would be a good thing for people in general for you to warn the driver. In fact, the only people who do not benefit from the warning are the people who stand to gain monetarily from the fine.
Also, this appears to fly in the face of public assurances that speed traps make us safer because their presence make people slow down. If we don't know about the presence of speed traps, if in fact it's illegal for us to be made aware of their presence, how does their presence make us safer? Or is this in fact proof that the sole purpose of speed traps is revenue enhancement?
Apparently, yes.
By extension, apparently, yes.
Apparently, you'd be charged with warning someone that police were in the area. I can imagine that the logic would be, it's just like stealing, when your actions prevent the city from collecting fines.
Waze will also notify you if there is a cop parked ahead, although it doesn't always say why.
This is where I'm in a quandary. I don't agree with Ham's position, but Nye sometimes comes off as a bit of a condescending asshole, and I confess I'd enjoy seeing him flummoxed. Just too bad it has to be on this issue.
> And I'm paying 40% more than I was before with three times the deductible.
That's interesting... that's almost exactly the numbers we saw. Wife and I both saw our company insurance dropped when Obamacare went into effect, and the replacement was a little bit more than 40% more expensive with almost exactly 3 times the deductible, for a much smaller pool of doctors. I'm told that the strategy is to live off your FSA for the first 3 - 4 months of a calendar year until your deductible gets paid up.
Apparently, you and I are in some category that makes us obligated to pick up the slack for the ones who saved money. I wonder if it's based on tax returns?
> This project went quite well if the goal was to funnel $600 MM into the pockets of well-connected contracting firms
Sadly, I think that was the main purpose. And I believe it's the primary reason why government projects in general so often fail.
Ah, yes, the huge variety of laptop choices without Windows: 3 different rebadged Clevo models with terrible keyboards, and extremely pricy Apple laptops requiring you to pay for an OSX licence.
Speaking of that, what seems to be happening in the enterprise is that Apple is taking advantage of Microsoft's perceived lack of direction to gain a firmer foothold. Although in the past Apple presence in the enterprise was driven somewhat unsuccessfully from the bottom up, now it's being driven from the top down -- execs with iphones and ipads who want to carry those cool paper thin macbooks, leaving it to IT to find a way to make everything work. And we are, for the most part. This is not the year of Linux on the desktop, but it is the year of more Apple products in meeting rooms. iPads do really well at rendering those cool graphs that execs like so much, and the devices are cool and elegant looking.
And everything Microsoft does -- Win8.1, Surface 2, just seems to make things worse.
> That said, if I had to *support users* on Windows 8, I'd hate it with a passion. Most users don't adapt readily to UI changes.
Which is why in it's current form Win8 is pretty much dead to the enterprise.
> You create a small new feature, and the app breaks down in unexpected ways. You fix a bug, and new bugs pop up all over the place.
In other words, practically any homegrown project you're hired as a contractor to fix. The bad news is you're in for that slimy feeling of traversing and fully understanding someone else's broken code. You're also probably in for some late hours rewriting the problematic parts. (Whether this is good or bad news is a matter of opinion.) The good news is people tend to make the same mistakes the same way, and once you fix this, you probably will get more work fixing this person's other broken code.