Yep, here's another vote for trackballs. It takes maybe 2 or 3 days to get completely used to one, and then you'll see just how much faster you can work, not to mention how incredibly less stress and strain there is on your arm, wrist, and fingers. I use both the Kensington (big) trackball and the Logitech mightymarble with ease. Try one for a while, and remember to play with things like the acceleration curves. You'll never want to go back to a mouse.
-- Those who like joysticks/pointing devices may well want to stick with them. There is a big difference between positioning tools, i.e. mouse/trackball, and velocity tools, i.e. pointers.
Oblig. OnTopic comment: My new 'fridge has LED lighting inside. Makes sense that you wouldn't want a 20-40W heat source _inside_ Mr. Fridge. You do know that the light turns off when the door is closed?
I think it's nice that Microsoft is finally trying to keep the UI standard across all their apps, but the Ribbon is really stupid. I haven't had a chance to try a ribbon out yet, but everything I've read suggests that customizing the Ribbon, adding macro buttons, and most important, assigning keystrokes, is either not permitted or much harder than it was under previous Office versions.
Anyone who uses Office regularly is going to set up customized toolbars, add a few macros for common operations, and so on. It doesn't matter how cool or all-encompassing the Ribbon is. If I'm forced to use the mouse AT ALL for any action that I do more than once a day (roughly), I'll walk away. Mouse clicks are for learning and for casual users. I'm perfectly happy to use the mouse for apps I'm not familiar with. But when I'm using Word several hours a day, I want to be able to keep my hands on the KB. (FWIW I'd be happy to convert to *Tex but good luck w/ that in a corporate environment)
There's an awful lot of arguing here about texting vs. voice comms, and which is more obnoxious or intrusive. But nobody seems to notice that texting is really just email sent to a phone rather than a PDA or PC. So what's all the hubbub about, anyway? Just accept the fact that people (many, not all) want a combination telephone (voice) and email tool (texting), and move on.
Here's a couple radical ideas ~_* Keep letting elementary school kids play w/ Logo. Those who are hooked will quickly move all by themselves to other programming languages. Expose kids at all levels to things like phun . And most important: ban use of PowerPoint in all schools at all levels. 'nuff said on that one.
As others have posted, learning to design algorithms is useful; learning any specific programming language is far less so. I'd go so far as to suggest that the rules laid down in Geometry class may be of great use for budding programmers. Geo students are (or at least they are in the Honors levels) taught to write down every step in the proof, along with a justification (theorem, definition, etc) for each step. That's the first lesson in algorithm development.
>>>. I would like to see more money going to services like PBS and NPR
Then give them more of YOUR money; not mine. I don't want my dollars going to support those pro-government, anti-individual (i.e. socialist) organizations. If you like PBS/NPR, I'm happy for you and fully support your decision to give money to them. But Not my money. My money stays in my wallet.
And thus dies the/. moderation system. The only people who could possibly have labelled that "insightful" are neo-libertarians. Look: whatever your political bent, can't you try to distinguish between "insightful," which means actual info was provided, and "that's so right I just have to respond with 'me, too!!!!'
Dunno about TNY "..running an article..." since the URLmakes it clear this is the article I read a year ago in the hard copy magazine. Anyway...
Humans in general resist change, and it's certainly true that medical staff are concerned that a checklist will just mean more work for them without any benefit. Part of the problem is that, when they do forget something (say they checked a patient in but forgot to record one of 5 vital signs), it's the next person in line, be it MD or PA, who gets stuck cleaning up the mess. Checklists need to be designed with user input (gosh!) and need to be implemented diplomatically. Transitions are always tough, but sooner or later everyone in the health care field will view them as just part of the routine.
Developers need to take time to read the Windows Vista user experience guidelines You are joking, right? "User experience guidelines" from a company that hasn't figured out that EVERY app should respect -Q for quit and -W for close window? A company whose most integrated product, Office, can't copy text from Exel to PPT without losing the font type and font size? I could go on for ages. Msoft products are nowhere near meeting consistent, or sensible, gui or keyboard guidelines. And even when they come up with really good tricks, like double-click to select a word and triple-click to select a line, they don't even try to educated the user base.
You need to add more value to what you sell. The code itself is not valuable enough, so something like support or guaranteed compatible hardware/software (if applicable) needs to be thrown in the mix Exactly. Two examples come to mind: Crossover (Darwine in a nice supported package) R-Pro (R in a nice installer package w/ help desk and whatnot online)
Now,I'm not saying either of these packaged version of open source software is the next Killer App, just that people are often much happier spending a few bucks to get a click-and-install file rather than hacking thru installation notes (see VisualPinMAME:-( ).
The way I see it, many of the most famous photos from WW2 were constructed and posed by the photographer. What's the difference between doing that and adding a flag in post-processing? So long as the basic content, which in this case is just a darn personal shot, is correct, who cares? Heck, is it unacceptable for Ansel Adams to have dodged or burned in the darkroom, or to have used color filters to enhance contrast in the original shot?
Windows Se7en It'll kill your wife, cut her head off, gift wrap it, send it to you, and allow you to edit the movie in Windows Movie Maker like never before!
I finally get around to renting Se7en, avoiding any spoilers, threatening my friends if they tell me any details and then I get pwned on/. -------
What, you didn't know the villain forces the cops to use Windows MovieMaker?
Not the same thing. Sharkskin was indeed known for a while to present an extremely slippery surface. What these researchers found is an additional effect: that the sharkskin can raise the individual "teeth" so that a turbulent layer gets created. This turbulent water layer prevents flow dissociation, which in turn reduces drag. I think it's a bit of both, i.e. previously known, and new info. IIRC, back when the USA won the America's Cup back down in Australian water, people knew that the rough surface on sharks' skin helped reduce drag. The new-er part seems to be the fact that sharks can raise or lower their scales/bumps as needed to adjust the turbulence factors. Any fluid engineers out there?
I'm not sure which old story to refer to here. The guys who cracked PlayStation3 in a couple weeks? The various top DoD and White House officials who took classified computers home to play with? The various spooks and spook wannabes who dumped sensitive stuff into voicemail boxes, or Yahoo mail, or whatever it was, off their crackberries?
Security remains only as good as the control over the folks who have access. "Now, before leaving the controlled area for the day, please look into this bright light..."
No no, it all makes perfect sense. It's all about behavior profiling. You see, any terrorist will take pains to hide his activities. Therefore anyone who looks like a terrorist most certainly isn't one. Anyone who carries guns, bombs, or other contraband openly is by definition safe, and so doesn't need to be searched.
Thank goodness you're joking, else I'd have to remind everyone about the PC-board sweatshirt, or the Lite-Brite pictures. Not that I think Boston has any stupider TSA staff, or local police staff, than anywhere else.
I'm a Republican, Furthermore, I'm sick of the label "conservative". The idea that man should rule himself (not be ruled by politicians) is about as liberal as can be.[snip] I'm as liberal as any Democrat, I just don't think having my government act like my daddy is the answer.
Great. So you support Republicans, who are responsible for most of the laws which in fact allow the govt to be your daddy? You don't make a heck of a lot of sense. BTW, laws which *protect* personal rights are not paternalistic, no matter how much the "block the internet, lock the TV channels, and take away your kids' access to birth control" crowd would like to think they are.
First off, a minimum of four buttons should be in there. You listening, Apple? (and yeah, I'm a Mac evangelist). So sell the thing w/ the buttons all programmed for normal click, or two each normal and "right" click. Let the savants reprogram them. Trackpad with programmable two-finger, side scroll, etc. like the newer machines tend to provide. And first of all, a numeric keypad. Second, a keyboard with action much more like a regular keyboard--personally I'd give up the extra 1/4 inch or so of overall laptop thickness for that. And finally, a couple fold-out feet so you can prop the laptop up at a sensible angle for typing.
Give me all that and I won't even bitch about the lack of an fold-up 17inch display:-)
Case history, so to speak: a certain 10th Edition of a Calc text retails for $200 right now. W/ his professor's blessing, my son bought a used copy of the 9th edition for $25. The textbook publishers demonstrate a greed rivalled only by the *IAA. The sooner they are brought down, the better.
With homage to "The Usual Suspects," all the posters discussing ways to change their gait when committing a crime have it backwards. Start out from the first time your "identity" comes into existence with a limp, and after the crime is done, go back to walking normally. The gait marked with the criminal no longer exists.
Just out of interest YtO2, do you work for NGC? We got taken over by them (if this happens to your company, run screaming for the exit!), and their IT Division (yep, a whole separate division) expects everyone to call the help desk and wait for a ticket. They actually were proud to tell us that if a printer went down, they'd have someone out to fix it by the end of the NEXT DAY. Boggles the mind. And, like you, we 'hide' all our real machines on a subnet, away from their Godzilla-like thumping of the 'main' net. You know, forced upgrades, deletion of "unapproved software," etc.
Dunno if he *could* have got enuff sigs, but he was warned that appearing on a primary ballot, even in jest,could cause his show to be classified as campaign material. That would have invoked all sorts of 'equal time' rules or some such.
yeah, well.... I thought Erin E. was hot until they revealed that she's wearing a wig and is a natural brunette. Bummer. Next thing they'll tell us is she's wearing tinted contacts.
The thing I do if they force the question, is use a stock response for all questions of that type, which is, itself, password like. E.g my first pet was: Wc@e%rddt^y, whereas my first car was" L!kj%nb^ Exactly. Why people think they have to answer the questions with the actual correct answer is beyond me. Except when you try to set up an account with true morons like Northrop Grumman, who gives you lots of choices in questions, but for example if you select "what are the last 4 digits of your SSN?" you are forced to respond with a 4-digit decimal number, or for "what state were you born in?" it has to be a two-character alpha response. And even worse, many sites don't allow you to answer different questions with the same answer. That sort of screws Mr. Washington Washington who was born in Washington:-)
escalate the situation to one where the cop can call "resisting", then all bets are off. They can afford to pick a fight with anyone at any time and come out "clean".
You don't know what you're fucking talking about, and I find you offensive. Maybe this happened to you, or somebody you know, and it's gotten you irked. But I guarantee that I know more cops than you do, and *never* -- not once -- has this happened in my personal experience as an ex-police officer.
Take a look at recent incidents in Boston (MA, USA). In the last 4 years, at three different sports-championship celebrations, a person has died as a result of police action. In all cases two things were clear: the person was not being agressive or hostile, and there was no active mob-riot behavior going on. The concern around here is that police forces are 1) not trained well enough in non-confrontational crowd control, and 2)outfitting police with cool weapons and massive riot gear (body armor, shields, etc) induces aggressiveness in those policemen.
Slashdot Mirror
Yep, here's another vote for trackballs.
It takes maybe 2 or 3 days to get completely used to one, and then you'll see just how much faster you can work, not to mention how incredibly less stress and strain there is on your arm, wrist, and fingers. I use both the Kensington (big) trackball and the Logitech mightymarble with ease.
Try one for a while, and remember to play with things like the acceleration curves. You'll never want to go back to a mouse.
-- Those who like joysticks/pointing devices may well want to stick with them. There is a big difference between positioning tools, i.e. mouse/trackball, and velocity tools, i.e. pointers.
Oblig. OnTopic comment: My new 'fridge has LED lighting inside. Makes sense that you wouldn't want a 20-40W heat source _inside_ Mr. Fridge.
You do know that the light turns off when the door is closed?
I think it's nice that Microsoft is finally trying to keep the UI standard across all their apps, but the Ribbon is really stupid.
I haven't had a chance to try a ribbon out yet, but everything I've read suggests that customizing the Ribbon, adding macro buttons, and most important, assigning keystrokes, is either not permitted or much harder than it was under previous Office versions.
Anyone who uses Office regularly is going to set up customized toolbars, add a few macros for common operations, and so on. It doesn't matter how cool or all-encompassing the Ribbon is. If I'm forced to use the mouse AT ALL for any action that I do more than once a day (roughly), I'll walk away. Mouse clicks are for learning and for casual users. I'm perfectly happy to use the mouse for apps I'm not familiar with. But when I'm using Word several hours a day, I want to be able to keep my hands on the KB. (FWIW I'd be happy to convert to *Tex but good luck w/ that in a corporate environment)
There's an awful lot of arguing here about texting vs. voice comms, and which is more obnoxious or intrusive.
But nobody seems to notice that texting is really just email sent to a phone rather than a PDA or PC. So what's all the hubbub about, anyway? Just accept the fact that people (many, not all) want a combination telephone (voice) and email tool (texting), and move on.
Here's a couple radical ideas ~_*
Keep letting elementary school kids play w/ Logo. Those who are hooked will quickly move all by themselves to other programming languages.
Expose kids at all levels to things like phun .
And most important: ban use of PowerPoint in all schools at all levels. 'nuff said on that one.
As others have posted, learning to design algorithms is useful; learning any specific programming language is far less so. I'd go so far as to suggest that the rules laid down in Geometry class may be of great use for budding programmers. Geo students are (or at least they are in the Honors levels) taught to write down every step in the proof, along with a justification (theorem, definition, etc) for each step. That's the first lesson in algorithm development.
>>>. I would like to see more money going to services like PBS and NPR
Then give them more of YOUR money; not mine. I don't want my dollars going to support those pro-government, anti-individual (i.e. socialist) organizations. If you like PBS/NPR, I'm happy for you and fully support your decision to give money to them. But Not my money. My money stays in my wallet.
/. moderation system. The only people who could possibly have labelled that "insightful" are neo-libertarians. Look: whatever your political bent, can't you try to distinguish between "insightful," which means actual info was provided, and "that's so right I just have to respond with 'me, too!!!!'
And thus dies the
Dunno about TNY "..running an article..." since the URLmakes it clear this is the article I read a year ago in the hard copy magazine.
Anyway...
Humans in general resist change, and it's certainly true that medical staff are concerned that a checklist will just mean more work for them without any benefit. Part of the problem is that, when they do forget something (say they checked a patient in but forgot to record one of 5 vital signs), it's the next person in line, be it MD or PA, who gets stuck cleaning up the mess.
Checklists need to be designed with user input (gosh!) and need to be implemented diplomatically. Transitions are always tough, but sooner or later everyone in the health care field will view them as just part of the routine.
Developers need to take time to read the Windows Vista user experience guidelines
You are joking, right? "User experience guidelines" from a company that hasn't figured out that EVERY app should respect -Q for quit and -W for close window? A company whose most integrated product, Office, can't copy text from Exel to PPT without losing the font type and font size?
I could go on for ages. Msoft products are nowhere near meeting consistent, or sensible, gui or keyboard guidelines.
And even when they come up with really good tricks, like double-click to select a word and triple-click to select a line, they don't even try to educated the user base.
You need to add more value to what you sell. The code itself is not valuable enough, so something like support or guaranteed compatible hardware/software (if applicable) needs to be thrown in the mix
Exactly. Two examples come to mind:
Crossover (Darwine in a nice supported package)
R-Pro (R in a nice installer package w/ help desk and whatnot online)
Now,I'm not saying either of these packaged version of open source software is the next Killer App, just that people are often much happier spending a few bucks to get a click-and-install file rather than hacking thru installation notes (see VisualPinMAME :-( ).
The way I see it, many of the most famous photos from WW2 were constructed and posed by the photographer. What's the difference between doing that and adding a flag in post-processing? So long as the basic content, which in this case is just a darn personal shot, is correct, who cares?
Heck, is it unacceptable for Ansel Adams to have dodged or burned in the darkroom, or to have used color filters to enhance contrast in the original shot?
So let the extortionist have the drugs they were sending me.
Windows Se7en It'll kill your wife, cut her head off, gift wrap it, send it to you, and allow you to edit the movie in Windows Movie Maker like never before!
I finally get around to renting Se7en, avoiding any spoilers, threatening my friends if they tell me any details and then I get pwned on /.
-------
What, you didn't know the villain forces the cops to use Windows MovieMaker?
Not the same thing. Sharkskin was indeed known for a while to present an extremely slippery surface. What these researchers found is an additional effect: that the sharkskin can raise the individual "teeth" so that a turbulent layer gets created. This turbulent water layer prevents flow dissociation, which in turn reduces drag.
I think it's a bit of both, i.e. previously known, and new info. IIRC, back when the USA won the America's Cup back down in Australian water, people knew that the rough surface on sharks' skin helped reduce drag. The new-er part seems to be the fact that sharks can raise or lower their scales/bumps as needed to adjust the turbulence factors.
Any fluid engineers out there?
I'm not sure which old story to refer to here.
The guys who cracked PlayStation3 in a couple weeks?
The various top DoD and White House officials who took classified computers home to play with?
The various spooks and spook wannabes who dumped sensitive stuff into voicemail boxes, or Yahoo mail, or whatever it was, off their crackberries?
Security remains only as good as the control over the folks who have access.
"Now, before leaving the controlled area for the day, please look into this bright light..."
.... a treadmill that moves in the opposite direction at the same speed as the wheels?
No no, it all makes perfect sense. It's all about behavior profiling. You see, any terrorist will take pains to hide his activities. Therefore anyone who looks like a terrorist most certainly isn't one. Anyone who carries guns, bombs, or other contraband openly is by definition safe, and so doesn't need to be searched.
Thank goodness you're joking, else I'd have to remind everyone about the PC-board sweatshirt, or the Lite-Brite pictures.
Not that I think Boston has any stupider TSA staff, or local police staff, than anywhere else.
I'm a Republican,
Furthermore, I'm sick of the label "conservative". The idea that man should rule himself (not be ruled by politicians) is about as liberal as can be.[snip] I'm as liberal as any Democrat, I just don't think having my government act like my daddy is the answer.
Great. So you support Republicans, who are responsible for most of the laws which in fact allow the govt to be your daddy? You don't make a heck of a lot of sense.
BTW, laws which *protect* personal rights are not paternalistic, no matter how much the "block the internet, lock the TV channels, and take away your kids' access to birth control" crowd would like to think they are.
First off, a minimum of four buttons should be in there. You listening, Apple? (and yeah, I'm a Mac evangelist). So sell the thing w/ the buttons all programmed for normal click, or two each normal and "right" click. Let the savants reprogram them.
Trackpad with programmable two-finger, side scroll, etc. like the newer machines tend to provide.
And first of all, a numeric keypad.
Second, a keyboard with action much more like a regular keyboard--personally I'd give up the extra 1/4 inch or so of overall laptop thickness for that.
And finally, a couple fold-out feet so you can prop the laptop up at a sensible angle for typing.
Give me all that and I won't even bitch about the lack of an fold-up 17inch display :-)
Case history, so to speak: a certain 10th Edition of a Calc text retails for $200 right now. W/ his professor's blessing, my son bought a used copy of the 9th edition for $25. The textbook publishers demonstrate a greed rivalled only by the *IAA. The sooner they are brought down, the better.
With homage to "The Usual Suspects," all the posters discussing ways to change their gait when committing a crime have it backwards. Start out from the first time your "identity" comes into existence with a limp, and after the crime is done, go back to walking normally. The gait marked with the criminal no longer exists.
Just out of interest YtO2, do you work for NGC?
We got taken over by them (if this happens to your company, run screaming for the exit!), and their IT Division (yep, a whole separate division) expects everyone to call the help desk and wait for a ticket. They actually were proud to tell us that if a printer went down, they'd have someone out to fix it by the end of the NEXT DAY. Boggles the mind.
And, like you, we 'hide' all our real machines on a subnet, away from their Godzilla-like thumping of the 'main' net. You know, forced upgrades, deletion of "unapproved software," etc.
Dunno if he *could* have got enuff sigs, but he was warned that appearing on a primary ballot, even in jest,could cause his show to be classified as campaign material. That would have invoked all sorts of 'equal time' rules or some such.
yeah, well....
I thought Erin E. was hot until they revealed that she's wearing a wig and is a natural brunette.
Bummer. Next thing they'll tell us is she's wearing tinted contacts.
The thing I do if they force the question, is use a stock response for all questions of that type, which is, itself, password like. E.g my first pet was: Wc@e%rddt^y, whereas my first car was" L!kj%nb^ :-)
Exactly. Why people think they have to answer the questions with the actual correct answer is beyond me. Except when you try to set up an account with true morons like Northrop Grumman, who gives you lots of choices in questions, but for example if you select "what are the last 4 digits of your SSN?" you are forced to respond with a 4-digit decimal number, or for "what state were you born in?" it has to be a two-character alpha response.
And even worse, many sites don't allow you to answer different questions with the same answer. That sort of screws Mr. Washington Washington who was born in Washington
escalate the situation to one where the cop can call "resisting", then all bets are off. They can afford to pick a fight with anyone at any time and come out "clean".
You don't know what you're fucking talking about, and I find you offensive. Maybe this happened to you, or somebody you know, and it's gotten you irked. But I guarantee that I know more cops than you do, and *never* -- not once -- has this happened in my personal experience as an ex-police officer.
Take a look at recent incidents in Boston (MA, USA). In the last 4 years, at three different sports-championship celebrations, a person has died as a result of police action. In all cases two things were clear: the person was not being agressive or hostile, and there was no active mob-riot behavior going on.
The concern around here is that police forces are 1) not trained well enough in non-confrontational crowd control, and 2)outfitting police with cool weapons and massive riot gear (body armor, shields, etc) induces aggressiveness in those policemen.