But you'd need to buy rather a lot of those to make up the price gap between a console and a "gaming PC".
At that price difference, it would only take me 8.5 games to completely cover the cost of my gaming PC (at today's prices). That is excluding the monitor, because I reused my existing one. The system was a pretty low end machine when I got it 2 years ago and now it is the ultra low end. But it can still run any game that I throw at it at the default medium settings. It is only when you want to max out the display settings that you need to spend serious money on a gaming rig.
Try playing on a console. It feels much more natural, and realistic
No, that is just because you are more familiar with consoles. I come from a PC background and find that the exact opposite is true. I find the controller to be an artificial barrier to immersion. If I want to look at something in real life I don't think of turning my head at a particular speed. I just whip it around and immediately lock on to what I want to see, just like using a mouse.
LOL a rubbish interface that revolutionized an industry and that literally everyone in the mobile space immediately began copying.
I do wonder what you think that everyone else copied from Apple. From what I have seen of Windows Phone 7, the only thing that it shares is the red notification numbers on icons. That and the locked down nature of the phone.
I'm sure you could do better with both of your eyes plucked out, though
Well I would think of the standard things that most apps need to do and write that into my user interface guidelines. It is not rocket science. Just pick any one of the methids used by iOS and stick with it. But I don't think that I will try it with my eyes plucked out.
But nobody was calling Windows XP ridiculously easy like they were with iOS. There is still a need for 3rd party books on that platform, especially because they keep changing the user interface of the printer setup with each version of Windows.
All I ask is that you take off the rose coloured glasses when looking at Apple's user interface.
People overestimate how easy the iPad is to use. My first introduction to the iAnything was watching other people struggling to use their new devices. Without watching the screen, I could tell it was not the intuitive interface that everybody claimed.
When I finally got an iPhone I discovered the problem for myself. The interface is littered with hidden features that have no visual indication that they exist, let alone how to use them. Then there is the problem of the inconsistent user interface.
The great example that I always use is to ask how you delete things in iOS. It seems that every app has its own way to do it. Some of them rely on the user just having to know that they have to strike through an item or click and holding on an icon until a little red X appears. The only way to find out how to do it is to try out all the possibilities. I still can't say for sure that you can't delete a song from the iPod app, because maybe there is some method that I haven't tried. Either way it is a rubbish interface.
So I think that there is definitely a use for an iPad how-to book.
Correct. They are called Volume Mount Points, and they were introduced in Windows 2000 (ten years ago). You can mount non-NTFS drives as a folder on an NTFS drive. It even works on USB drives and CD/DVD drives (so you could have/dev/cdrom).
I have a feeling that it may have been possible to do with the filesystem in NT 6, but there was no user interface for it.
Probably because Windows tablets will probably include heavy handed DRM out of the box and the French think that will keep people from sharing... um, er stealing.
You seriously want to use that argument when it is being compared to the likes of iOS? Sheesh!
That study doesn't invalidate anything that I said. Furthermore, you would need to make a more long term study, because the it would take a while for the knowlege of the CCTV cameras to have a behavioral change in the general population. Consider that most crimes aren't well planned heists, but rather crimes of opportunity. Most of these criminals aren't used to thinking about whether they are on camera or not.
And even if they did,
they wouldn't know exactly where cameras are in place anyway. It could be that the general drop in crime could be attributed to criminals having a general knowlege that cameras are being installed, but not exactly where. Crime may then drop in places that aren't covered by CCTV.
The simple fact is that it is very difficult to determine what crimes have been prevented by CCTV. My original reasoning still stands.
Now that's as looney left as/. has ever endured. Calling something communist is racist?!
You stopped reading that that sentence, didn't you? It is pretty obvious that I wasn't talking about whether people call GPL software communist. But none of the problems that I listed in my original message would have occured if this article was about, say, Britain.
If it had been about China (which unlike Russia, IS actually a communist country), then there would have been some line that whatever technology was is in use had been all stolen from the west. If this were about France then someone would have manage to work a surrender line in (cheese eating surrender monkey). Some of it is tongue in cheek, but all of it is based on the country that is being discussed. That is the very definition of racism.
Solve, sure. Prevent? Clearly no. Cameras do not prevent crime; only assist in prosecuting.
You can't really say that for sure. It would be very hard to get stats on crimes that never happened.
You can't just compare the overall crimes stats between now and before the cameras because while some crimes are prevented, other crimes that wouldn't have been reported are now reported due to greater confidence in police action because of the CCTV cameras.
I don't think that aristotle-dude was saying that it was a problem.
This whole thread is based on racism anyway. As soon as I read the summary I knew that people would be joking about Linux being communist while other people would be suspecting the Russians of not playing fair (either not giving back to the community or poisoning the source with backdoors). It didn't take long for these suggestions to occur.
My position is that it would be utterly stupid for the Russian government to NOT submit their changes back to world. Any changes they make would surely make the software work better for the Russian language and requirements. Why would they want to have to make their alterations again each time a new version of applications/OS is released? Why wouldn't they want their improvements to benefit the general population of Russia?
Just because they want to standardize on their own repositry doesn't mean that they will hide it all away, just that they want the entire government to use consistent, vetted versions of software.
No, that would not be legal. There are rules for contracts that require that an offer must be accepted by the offeree. You can't agree to the terms of an offer that you have not seen. Now you could say that if a spammer sent further messages after the first one resulted in a reply with those terms then they would be liable, but I am not sure. It is like when you get one of those automated phone calls with a recorded message. You can't just talk back to the message and legally say that you have informed the phone spammer of your conditions.
I am not sure who to cheer on here, a spammer or a lawyer. Maybe it is time to launch the nukes and start again with a fresh slate!
What a load rubbish. What is your justification for that?
They are Microsoft
Ah yes, the ostrich approach. Stick your head in the sand and ignore all the evidence that doesn't match your prejudices.
Manufacturers cancelled non-Windows development believing that users will like "Windows" on those devices or, more likely, as a result of pressure from Microsoft.
And you know this because... Ah wait, don't tell me. They are Microsoft. Just blind speculation again.
The original iPAQ ran Pocket PC 2000, which was the 3rd generation of the mobile platform. Compaq had plenty of time to see what the OS was like before committing to the product. I am sure that they thought that it suited their needs. And none of your rampant speculation sheds any light on their capacity to write portable software.
Nobody outside Microsoft knows how much of this was portable code and how much of it was each hardware architecture splitting into its own branch of code.
You could always go have a look at the Windows 2000 code that was leaked to the Internet, or ask someone who has access to it through the Microsoft Shared Source Initiative.
The fact that non-Intel platforms all disappeared strongly indicates that it was mostly the latter in the end
It seems more likely to me that it would be simplifying 3rd party drivers and applications that would make standardizing on one architecture desirable. Plus the fact that there was never any great demand for the non-Intel versions anyway.
They don't support other architectures because they can't write portable code.
What a load rubbish. What is your justification for that? How is Compaq releasing the IPAQ using Windows Mobile rather than Linux any indication that Microsoft can't write portable code?
The fact that Windows NT has run on 6 different architectures and Windows CE runs on 4 architectures proves that they can write portable code.
Since 2002 MSFT has had a tablet additions to their OS.
You are a decade out there. Microsoft first made their tablet extensions for Windows 3.1 in 1991.
in that time they didn't do anything as simple as updating the mail client to work better with tablets.
They changed their mail client to use the ribbon interface. I was never a big fan of the move to ribbons in Office, but I do have to admit that the ribbon makes it much easier to use on a tablet.
Apple didn't release a tablet OS, until after the web browser or mail client worked well for tablets.
I guess you are assuming that a tablet PC must use a finger-based interface, rather than a pen-based one. Microsoft's vision of a tablet has always assumed a pen interface, which given the time that it was first made seems like a reasonable thing to do. Even Apple's early tablet attempts used this. Despite your assertions, the first version of the Newton wasn't a particularly successful interface. I still recall an Apple rep struggling to get it to work properly during a demonstration at a trade show.
I have always (fondly) called that device the Apple Nurses, because of its inability to recognise its own name during that first presentations. It reminded me of how the Amiga's speech systhesis couldn't pronounce "Amiga" correctly.
Which third of that was serious, because it is all 100% wrong. If Oracle improves MySQL, then great for them. But how could they possibly kill off two open source programs? They can't put the genie back in the bottle.
Using the pen is awkward, and makes it a lot more hassle to use than a finger based device.. Many functions on an iphone can be used in one hand, but an older windows mobile phone which needs a stylus is unusable in this way.
On the other hand (no pun intended), I travelled across Europe using a PalmPilot to write my travel journal. I could sit on a train watching the terrain as I wrote length entries without having to look at the screen. I can't do that with my iPhone as I have to constantly watch for typos or cases where the phone decides that I meant a different word that I typed.
Also, for fine pointing the pen is better. But yes, I can also operate the iPhone single handed, so there are advantages and disadvantages with both methods. I guess the palmy had it best because it didn't require a special pen. You could use your fingers too.
So the option is to either hit a button every time you want the virtual keyboard, or to always have it up, taking space? Neither option is all that great.
No option is perfect. I find the iPhone's way is exceedingly annoying. The way it keeps popping up all the time, interrupting the flow. The way it uses far too much of the screen (especially in landscape mode) so that it results in a smaller screen than my old Nokia phone. (Obviously this will always be difficult for any phone sized device, but since Apple don't allow any programs to change the standard interface I can't get a replacement for the keyboard - like an implementation of the old palmpilot system for example.) The way it moves your screen position around, but doesn't return it after the keyboard goes away. The way in the browser it zooms the font to a stupidly large size so you can't see the the entire field, leaving you zoomed in after the keyboard goes away.
The lack of a next/previous field button makes it a trial to do large forms. This site is a great example. Doing a/. posting from my iPhone is exceedingly frustrating.
How difficult is it to hit the maximize button with a finger tip? And whether maximized or not, how much space is taken up by the title bar? A tablet certainly has more screen real estate than a phone, but it's still pretty valuable.
I agree that trying to squeeze the Windows user interface into the size of a phone is utterly stupid. I have never been a fan of Windows Mobile for that reason. But on a tablet, most programs that I use tend to remember the maximize settings between launches, so I don't recall having to dive for the button too much. Maybe that is because I run in portrait orientation, so I have more problems with lack of width than height. You can adjust the title bar height if you really want (although that would make the maximize button smaller).
I think the point is that you have to have different ways of interfacing with a tablet - don't have small elements that could be difficult to hit with a fingertip (especially since you can't 'hover' and fine-tune your position like you can with a mouse) and don't waste screen space.
Fair enough, but I think that is the direction they have been going since XP. The Start menu changed to the multi column version with larger icons and less need for fiddly navigation, the menus were replaced with the larger command buttons, and compact dialog boxes are getting replaced with windows with more white space and larger controls.
You know the virtual keyboard that iOS and Android pops up as you give a text box focus? Yeah. Windows 7 doesn't support that. It has a virtual keyboard, but you can only click to open it manually. Click to open it. Every time you want to type.
That is incorrect. I am using my Win7 tablet now (using the standard, off the shelf desktop version of Windows), and you can dock the keyboard so it is always on screen. That is the way use mine, although I use the handwriting recognition rather than onscreen keyboard.
And what about window management? Clicking at window borders to resize them, to give room for... Wait a minute -- why do you have to window manage at all? That was taken out of iOS and Android, for a reason.
What? Windows has had a maximize button since version 1! I find it hard to get my users to NOT run everything fully maximized.
I am writing this with a pen on my tablet with Windows 7 loaded on it. Not everything that can be done with a pen works with a finger based touchscreen, but some things would still be OK. You can do a right click by pressing and holding for about a fifth of a second. This is also done on the iPhone. The pen allows for doing it quicker with a button on the side, but this obviously wouldn't work with a finger unless you are willing to have hand surgery!
However, you don't need to use the context menu as much as you used to. Click on a file or folder in explorer and the context toolbar changes to show the available options. I always hated the move away from menus, but in this case it works well. It seems that Microsoft has been moving away from relying on the right click for a while, especially with the ribbon interface.
For tooltips, my screen tracks the pen when it hovers over the screen. I don't know if this technology is available for finger based touchscreens.
I would like the see two finger dragging used for scrolling. This solves two problems. Firstly, it can be done without have to reprogram the applications since none would be expecting it for legacy code (it just has to send the scrollbar drag events). Secondly, it bypasses the problem that I have with my iPhone, that it is too easy to click on things when scrolling the screen.
What rubbish! Considering that there is the precedent of people living at the sites of two atomic bombs, nobody is going to make such a stupidly long prediction. I am willing to be proven wrong by a citation, but I can't see this will happen.
It is a shame that in order to complain about how environmental groups exaggerate, people have to make exaggerated claims themselves. It is hypocritical.
I think there's some confusion going on because what you actually replied to, the very first post you replied to, was "So the deniers are always wrong?"
Wrong! You are doing some selective quoting. I responded to "So the deniers are always wrong? Even when the proponents change their models to reveal that they were right?". The part that you conveniently omitted was where it is implied that this paper changes things so that it now proves what the deniers were saying all along. It is that assertion that prompted me to respond as I did.
Most of the skeptics do NOT "just keep guessing at a thousand different outcomes"
Bzzzt. As you just established, we are talking about deniers, not skeptics. We are not talking about people who rationally look at the studies and find them wanting. The deniers are the ones who have the gut feeling that global warming is a bunk. The ones who say that don't know science, but they know when they are being conned. The ones who don't really understand the concepts, so they just cut and paste ready made arguments from denialist websites - and I now I think about it, in doing so they do end up guessing at a thousand different outcomes as they go through their repertoire of pre-fabbed postings.
However, that was not really to what I had referred in my original post. I didn't actually mean that all deniers just guessed wildly. The original quote that started this thread lumped together all deniers, whereas I claimed that since they each had different ideas as to what was wrong with global warming, you can't just take one of those ideas to prove all the different people correct. It was the original poster's "denier" as a gestalt entity that I was referencing in my line about guessing. I can see how this may have caused confusion.
When you call everybody who doesn't believe in global warming a denier...
Nowhere in my quote did I EVER label all non-believers as deniers. In fact, the part that you omitted said that "But skeptics don't have to be scientists, nor do they have to be in favor of global warming". In other words, a skeptic can be someone for OR against global warming (or completely undecided), and they are different than the denier/true believer. Amazing! Let me spell it out for you again. I actually said that there is a category of people who don't believe in global warming, but who are not the kind of people that I would label as a denier. It appears that your assertion is complete bunk.
Since you have used a lot of labels to categorize people, there could of course be some differences in how you and I would describe something. You seem to toss the denier label around an awful lot for my taste.
The only reason why I keep using it here is because you keep redefining what I am supposed to think that it means and then complaining about that. You are the one who is completely fixated with the term. I have a very narrow and consistent definition of the term, and I have now had to explain it to you so many times in so many different ways that it should not be possible for you to not understand it now - surely...
If you disagree with some of the published papers -- perhaps have problems with some of Mann's work, or the infamous "hockey stick" -- are you a denier?
I have already pointed out twice that this/. story is all about people having problems with the findings from other scientists. I have stated both times that they are not deniers. So obviously if you find a mistake in any of Michael Mann's work then no, it doesn't make you a denier. Just as long as you are willing to look at his work and recognise that while he will undoubtedly get some things wrong, he will also get some things right. Dismissing absolutely everything he says because you find one wrong thing is just stupid.
But if my interpretation of what you're saying is wro
Right, which goes right back to what I first said -- why is it so important to you that, to use your derisive terminology, the "deniers" operate in lockstep unison as a monolithic entity?
I can't believe you just did that! Here we have a great example of someone just repeatedly asking the same question after it has been explained. But wait! Look at what you say further on:
It is entirely consistent that a new climate science paper can support some of the skeptics claims, while not supporting ALL of the skeptics claims!
Argh! That is what I have been saying. This paper doesn't prove that all the deniers are correct, as was originally stated in the post to which I replied initially. I have never, ever, EVER stated that everyone should think the same thing. Neither have I made the claim that:
anybody who doesn't believe in all facets of global warming as espoused by some scientists is a "denier"
You completely made that up. You have ignored how I have said that there are a class of people called skeptics who question the science behind climate change. They give themselves legitimacy by not adhering to dogma when confronted by evidence that conflicts with their viewpoint. The NASA scientists who wrote the paper that we are talking about are perfect examples of these people. They wrote a paper saying that other scientists got it wrong, but you don't see me calling them deniers.
FWIW, in this thread, you were the one who brought up the issue of semantics wrt skeptics, etc!
You are really trying to have it both ways, aren't you? It is time for you to make a choice here. Either I am lumping all the people who disagree with scientists into a "monolithic entity" or I am using semantics to differentiate between those same people.
Slashdot Mirror
But you'd need to buy rather a lot of those to make up the price gap between a console and a "gaming PC".
At that price difference, it would only take me 8.5 games to completely cover the cost of my gaming PC (at today's prices). That is excluding the monitor, because I reused my existing one. The system was a pretty low end machine when I got it 2 years ago and now it is the ultra low end. But it can still run any game that I throw at it at the default medium settings. It is only when you want to max out the display settings that you need to spend serious money on a gaming rig.
Try playing on a console. It feels much more natural, and realistic
No, that is just because you are more familiar with consoles. I come from a PC background and find that the exact opposite is true. I find the controller to be an artificial barrier to immersion. If I want to look at something in real life I don't think of turning my head at a particular speed. I just whip it around and immediately lock on to what I want to see, just like using a mouse.
LOL a rubbish interface that revolutionized an industry and that literally everyone in the mobile space immediately began copying.
I do wonder what you think that everyone else copied from Apple. From what I have seen of Windows Phone 7, the only thing that it shares is the red notification numbers on icons. That and the locked down nature of the phone.
I'm sure you could do better with both of your eyes plucked out, though
Well I would think of the standard things that most apps need to do and write that into my user interface guidelines. It is not rocket science. Just pick any one of the methids used by iOS and stick with it. But I don't think that I will try it with my eyes plucked out.
But nobody was calling Windows XP ridiculously easy like they were with iOS. There is still a need for 3rd party books on that platform, especially because they keep changing the user interface of the printer setup with each version of Windows.
All I ask is that you take off the rose coloured glasses when looking at Apple's user interface.
People overestimate how easy the iPad is to use. My first introduction to the iAnything was watching other people struggling to use their new devices. Without watching the screen, I could tell it was not the intuitive interface that everybody claimed.
When I finally got an iPhone I discovered the problem for myself. The interface is littered with hidden features that have no visual indication that they exist, let alone how to use them. Then there is the problem of the inconsistent user interface.
The great example that I always use is to ask how you delete things in iOS. It seems that every app has its own way to do it. Some of them rely on the user just having to know that they have to strike through an item or click and holding on an icon until a little red X appears. The only way to find out how to do it is to try out all the possibilities. I still can't say for sure that you can't delete a song from the iPod app, because maybe there is some method that I haven't tried. Either way it is a rubbish interface.
So I think that there is definitely a use for an iPad how-to book.
Correct. They are called Volume Mount Points, and they were introduced in Windows 2000 (ten years ago). You can mount non-NTFS drives as a folder on an NTFS drive. It even works on USB drives and CD/DVD drives (so you could have /dev/cdrom).
I have a feeling that it may have been possible to do with the filesystem in NT 6, but there was no user interface for it.
Probably because Windows tablets will probably include heavy handed DRM out of the box and the French think that will keep people from sharing... um, er stealing.
You seriously want to use that argument when it is being compared to the likes of iOS? Sheesh!
That study doesn't invalidate anything that I said. Furthermore, you would need to make a more long term study, because the it would take a while for the knowlege of the CCTV cameras to have a behavioral change in the general population. Consider that most crimes aren't well planned heists, but rather crimes of opportunity. Most of these criminals aren't used to thinking about whether they are on camera or not.
And even if they did, they wouldn't know exactly where cameras are in place anyway. It could be that the general drop in crime could be attributed to criminals having a general knowlege that cameras are being installed, but not exactly where. Crime may then drop in places that aren't covered by CCTV.
The simple fact is that it is very difficult to determine what crimes have been prevented by CCTV. My original reasoning still stands.
This whole thread is based on racism anyway
Now that's as looney left as /. has ever endured. Calling something communist is racist?!
You stopped reading that that sentence, didn't you? It is pretty obvious that I wasn't talking about whether people call GPL software communist. But none of the problems that I listed in my original message would have occured if this article was about, say, Britain.
If it had been about China (which unlike Russia, IS actually a communist country), then there would have been some line that whatever technology was is in use had been all stolen from the west. If this were about France then someone would have manage to work a surrender line in (cheese eating surrender monkey). Some of it is tongue in cheek, but all of it is based on the country that is being discussed. That is the very definition of racism.
Solve, sure. Prevent? Clearly no. Cameras do not prevent crime; only assist in prosecuting.
You can't really say that for sure. It would be very hard to get stats on crimes that never happened.
You can't just compare the overall crimes stats between now and before the cameras because while some crimes are prevented, other crimes that wouldn't have been reported are now reported due to greater confidence in police action because of the CCTV cameras.
I don't think that aristotle-dude was saying that it was a problem.
This whole thread is based on racism anyway. As soon as I read the summary I knew that people would be joking about Linux being communist while other people would be suspecting the Russians of not playing fair (either not giving back to the community or poisoning the source with backdoors). It didn't take long for these suggestions to occur.
My position is that it would be utterly stupid for the Russian government to NOT submit their changes back to world. Any changes they make would surely make the software work better for the Russian language and requirements. Why would they want to have to make their alterations again each time a new version of applications/OS is released? Why wouldn't they want their improvements to benefit the general population of Russia?
Just because they want to standardize on their own repositry doesn't mean that they will hide it all away, just that they want the entire government to use consistent, vetted versions of software.
No, that would not be legal. There are rules for contracts that require that an offer must be accepted by the offeree. You can't agree to the terms of an offer that you have not seen. Now you could say that if a spammer sent further messages after the first one resulted in a reply with those terms then they would be liable, but I am not sure. It is like when you get one of those automated phone calls with a recorded message. You can't just talk back to the message and legally say that you have informed the phone spammer of your conditions.
I am not sure who to cheer on here, a spammer or a lawyer. Maybe it is time to launch the nukes and start again with a fresh slate!
What a load rubbish. What is your justification for that?
They are Microsoft
Ah yes, the ostrich approach. Stick your head in the sand and ignore all the evidence that doesn't match your prejudices.
Manufacturers cancelled non-Windows development believing that users will like "Windows" on those devices or, more likely, as a result of pressure from Microsoft.
And you know this because... Ah wait, don't tell me. They are Microsoft. Just blind speculation again.
The original iPAQ ran Pocket PC 2000, which was the 3rd generation of the mobile platform. Compaq had plenty of time to see what the OS was like before committing to the product. I am sure that they thought that it suited their needs. And none of your rampant speculation sheds any light on their capacity to write portable software.
Nobody outside Microsoft knows how much of this was portable code and how much of it was each hardware architecture splitting into its own branch of code.
You could always go have a look at the Windows 2000 code that was leaked to the Internet, or ask someone who has access to it through the Microsoft Shared Source Initiative.
The fact that non-Intel platforms all disappeared strongly indicates that it was mostly the latter in the end
It seems more likely to me that it would be simplifying 3rd party drivers and applications that would make standardizing on one architecture desirable. Plus the fact that there was never any great demand for the non-Intel versions anyway.
They don't support other architectures because they can't write portable code.
What a load rubbish. What is your justification for that? How is Compaq releasing the IPAQ using Windows Mobile rather than Linux any indication that Microsoft can't write portable code?
The fact that Windows NT has run on 6 different architectures and Windows CE runs on 4 architectures proves that they can write portable code.
You seem determined not to like any answer you get on this. How about Batman Arkham Asylum? That was an A-list title launched at $60.
Since 2002 MSFT has had a tablet additions to their OS.
You are a decade out there. Microsoft first made their tablet extensions for Windows 3.1 in 1991.
in that time they didn't do anything as simple as updating the mail client to work better with tablets.
They changed their mail client to use the ribbon interface. I was never a big fan of the move to ribbons in Office, but I do have to admit that the ribbon makes it much easier to use on a tablet.
Apple didn't release a tablet OS, until after the web browser or mail client worked well for tablets.
I guess you are assuming that a tablet PC must use a finger-based interface, rather than a pen-based one. Microsoft's vision of a tablet has always assumed a pen interface, which given the time that it was first made seems like a reasonable thing to do. Even Apple's early tablet attempts used this. Despite your assertions, the first version of the Newton wasn't a particularly successful interface. I still recall an Apple rep struggling to get it to work properly during a demonstration at a trade show.
I have always (fondly) called that device the Apple Nurses, because of its inability to recognise its own name during that first presentations. It reminded me of how the Amiga's speech systhesis couldn't pronounce "Amiga" correctly.
1/3-serious
Which third of that was serious, because it is all 100% wrong. If Oracle improves MySQL, then great for them. But how could they possibly kill off two open source programs? They can't put the genie back in the bottle.
Using the pen is awkward, and makes it a lot more hassle to use than a finger based device.. Many functions on an iphone can be used in one hand, but an older windows mobile phone which needs a stylus is unusable in this way.
On the other hand (no pun intended), I travelled across Europe using a PalmPilot to write my travel journal. I could sit on a train watching the terrain as I wrote length entries without having to look at the screen. I can't do that with my iPhone as I have to constantly watch for typos or cases where the phone decides that I meant a different word that I typed.
Also, for fine pointing the pen is better. But yes, I can also operate the iPhone single handed, so there are advantages and disadvantages with both methods. I guess the palmy had it best because it didn't require a special pen. You could use your fingers too.
So the option is to either hit a button every time you want the virtual keyboard, or to always have it up, taking space? Neither option is all that great.
No option is perfect. I find the iPhone's way is exceedingly annoying. The way it keeps popping up all the time, interrupting the flow. The way it uses far too much of the screen (especially in landscape mode) so that it results in a smaller screen than my old Nokia phone. (Obviously this will always be difficult for any phone sized device, but since Apple don't allow any programs to change the standard interface I can't get a replacement for the keyboard - like an implementation of the old palmpilot system for example.) The way it moves your screen position around, but doesn't return it after the keyboard goes away. The way in the browser it zooms the font to a stupidly large size so you can't see the the entire field, leaving you zoomed in after the keyboard goes away.
The lack of a next/previous field button makes it a trial to do large forms. This site is a great example. Doing a /. posting from my iPhone is exceedingly frustrating.
How difficult is it to hit the maximize button with a finger tip? And whether maximized or not, how much space is taken up by the title bar? A tablet certainly has more screen real estate than a phone, but it's still pretty valuable.
I agree that trying to squeeze the Windows user interface into the size of a phone is utterly stupid. I have never been a fan of Windows Mobile for that reason. But on a tablet, most programs that I use tend to remember the maximize settings between launches, so I don't recall having to dive for the button too much. Maybe that is because I run in portrait orientation, so I have more problems with lack of width than height. You can adjust the title bar height if you really want (although that would make the maximize button smaller).
I think the point is that you have to have different ways of interfacing with a tablet - don't have small elements that could be difficult to hit with a fingertip (especially since you can't 'hover' and fine-tune your position like you can with a mouse) and don't waste screen space.
Fair enough, but I think that is the direction they have been going since XP. The Start menu changed to the multi column version with larger icons and less need for fiddly navigation, the menus were replaced with the larger command buttons, and compact dialog boxes are getting replaced with windows with more white space and larger controls.
You know the virtual keyboard that iOS and Android pops up as you give a text box focus? Yeah. Windows 7 doesn't support that. It has a virtual keyboard, but you can only click to open it manually. Click to open it. Every time you want to type.
That is incorrect. I am using my Win7 tablet now (using the standard, off the shelf desktop version of Windows), and you can dock the keyboard so it is always on screen. That is the way use mine, although I use the handwriting recognition rather than onscreen keyboard.
And what about window management? Clicking at window borders to resize them, to give room for... Wait a minute -- why do you have to window manage at all? That was taken out of iOS and Android, for a reason.
What? Windows has had a maximize button since version 1! I find it hard to get my users to NOT run everything fully maximized.
I am writing this with a pen on my tablet with Windows 7 loaded on it. Not everything that can be done with a pen works with a finger based touchscreen, but some things would still be OK. You can do a right click by pressing and holding for about a fifth of a second. This is also done on the iPhone. The pen allows for doing it quicker with a button on the side, but this obviously wouldn't work with a finger unless you are willing to have hand surgery!
However, you don't need to use the context menu as much as you used to. Click on a file or folder in explorer and the context toolbar changes to show the available options. I always hated the move away from menus, but in this case it works well. It seems that Microsoft has been moving away from relying on the right click for a while, especially with the ribbon interface.
For tooltips, my screen tracks the pen when it hovers over the screen. I don't know if this technology is available for finger based touchscreens.
I would like the see two finger dragging used for scrolling. This solves two problems. Firstly, it can be done without have to reprogram the applications since none would be expecting it for legacy code (it just has to send the scrollbar drag events). Secondly, it bypasses the problem that I have with my iPhone, that it is too easy to click on things when scrolling the screen.
What rubbish! Considering that there is the precedent of people living at the sites of two atomic bombs, nobody is going to make such a stupidly long prediction. I am willing to be proven wrong by a citation, but I can't see this will happen.
It is a shame that in order to complain about how environmental groups exaggerate, people have to make exaggerated claims themselves. It is hypocritical.
I think there's some confusion going on because what you actually replied to, the very first post you replied to, was "So the deniers are always wrong?"
Wrong! You are doing some selective quoting. I responded to "So the deniers are always wrong? Even when the proponents change their models to reveal that they were right?". The part that you conveniently omitted was where it is implied that this paper changes things so that it now proves what the deniers were saying all along. It is that assertion that prompted me to respond as I did.
Most of the skeptics do NOT "just keep guessing at a thousand different outcomes"
Bzzzt. As you just established, we are talking about deniers, not skeptics. We are not talking about people who rationally look at the studies and find them wanting. The deniers are the ones who have the gut feeling that global warming is a bunk. The ones who say that don't know science, but they know when they are being conned. The ones who don't really understand the concepts, so they just cut and paste ready made arguments from denialist websites - and I now I think about it, in doing so they do end up guessing at a thousand different outcomes as they go through their repertoire of pre-fabbed postings.
However, that was not really to what I had referred in my original post. I didn't actually mean that all deniers just guessed wildly. The original quote that started this thread lumped together all deniers, whereas I claimed that since they each had different ideas as to what was wrong with global warming, you can't just take one of those ideas to prove all the different people correct. It was the original poster's "denier" as a gestalt entity that I was referencing in my line about guessing. I can see how this may have caused confusion.
When you call everybody who doesn't believe in global warming a denier...
Nowhere in my quote did I EVER label all non-believers as deniers. In fact, the part that you omitted said that "But skeptics don't have to be scientists, nor do they have to be in favor of global warming". In other words, a skeptic can be someone for OR against global warming (or completely undecided), and they are different than the denier/true believer. Amazing! Let me spell it out for you again. I actually said that there is a category of people who don't believe in global warming, but who are not the kind of people that I would label as a denier. It appears that your assertion is complete bunk.
Since you have used a lot of labels to categorize people, there could of course be some differences in how you and I would describe something. You seem to toss the denier label around an awful lot for my taste.
The only reason why I keep using it here is because you keep redefining what I am supposed to think that it means and then complaining about that. You are the one who is completely fixated with the term. I have a very narrow and consistent definition of the term, and I have now had to explain it to you so many times in so many different ways that it should not be possible for you to not understand it now - surely...
If you disagree with some of the published papers -- perhaps have problems with some of Mann's work, or the infamous "hockey stick" -- are you a denier?
I have already pointed out twice that this /. story is all about people having problems with the findings from other scientists. I have stated both times that they are not deniers. So obviously if you find a mistake in any of Michael Mann's work then no, it doesn't make you a denier. Just as long as you are willing to look at his work and recognise that while he will undoubtedly get some things wrong, he will also get some things right. Dismissing absolutely everything he says because you find one wrong thing is just stupid.
But if my interpretation of what you're saying is wro
People incapable of using both hands at once, how are they going to manage comfortably typing all the capital letters without caps-lock?
Those people can use Sticky Keys for all the modifier keys (including Shift).
Right, which goes right back to what I first said -- why is it so important to you that, to use your derisive terminology, the "deniers" operate in lockstep unison as a monolithic entity?
I can't believe you just did that! Here we have a great example of someone just repeatedly asking the same question after it has been explained. But wait! Look at what you say further on:
It is entirely consistent that a new climate science paper can support some of the skeptics claims, while not supporting ALL of the skeptics claims!
Argh! That is what I have been saying. This paper doesn't prove that all the deniers are correct, as was originally stated in the post to which I replied initially. I have never, ever, EVER stated that everyone should think the same thing. Neither have I made the claim that:
anybody who doesn't believe in all facets of global warming as espoused by some scientists is a "denier"
You completely made that up. You have ignored how I have said that there are a class of people called skeptics who question the science behind climate change. They give themselves legitimacy by not adhering to dogma when confronted by evidence that conflicts with their viewpoint. The NASA scientists who wrote the paper that we are talking about are perfect examples of these people. They wrote a paper saying that other scientists got it wrong, but you don't see me calling them deniers.
FWIW, in this thread, you were the one who brought up the issue of semantics wrt skeptics, etc!
You are really trying to have it both ways, aren't you? It is time for you to make a choice here. Either I am lumping all the people who disagree with scientists into a "monolithic entity" or I am using semantics to differentiate between those same people.