I'll agree with that. (Nice plug for the book, BTW, for a minute I thought I was reading the back cover or something.) I'll go a step further, however, and take a moment to demonstrate reasons for scorn.
Let's look at the vertical, slot-loading optical drive. Yes, folks, every time you want to insert a disc, you will peer closely at the drive to see which way the letters are and then insert the disk properly. After doing this a few times, you will notice a small, white arrow pointing to the top of the disk. Wait, does it point to the top of the disk or the top of the drive? Does it mean that the disc goes with the label side towards the arrow or that the top goes the way the arrow points? A well designed product (such as most horizontal drives or even vertical trayloaders) make it reasonably obvious which way things go - good natural mapping.
Now let's say I want to add or remove a piece of hardware. Can I hotplug it? Don't even bother building something like this if you can't. It's designed to look like a bookshelf and people will expect it to behave similarly and allow any piece (ok, maybe not the CPU) to be added or removed at whim. It's design, by intent, invites change. Now assume I *can* hotplug it. Great - now can I just pull the drive out or do I have to unlatch it somehow first? Where's the latch button? (Pure speculation, but it's probably very artfully designed - small and black on the black part somewhere. Maybe it's marked.)
I will congratulate the designers for making sure the connectors on the devices are fairly obviously dissimilar from side to side, providing physical constraint as to "right-side up". I will not dwell too much on that fact, however, because from what I can see of their mockup image (warning: big image) the connectors are mirrored from one side to the other. In other words, either 1) devices designed for one side will not fit on the other side, or 2) if devices may be flipped to fit either side, then the lights and controls also reverse position. Harping on the optical drive for a moment, it would be even more confusing to reconfigure and then be habitually putting a CD in upside down.
And of course we must have my $0.02 on DRM - their model will mess with people's heads. If you call it a computer, people will expect it to operate and be capable of what their assumption of 'computer' is and they will use it based on their assumptions of how a computer is supposed to work. Having different rights to different devices will drive people nuts. It's all the same computer, why doesn't this hard drive let me do this when this other drive will? Why does it matter whether I rented this DVD from MegaMovie or this whole series on harddisk from ZipTV? Actually, that's pure speculation again - hopefully it won't matter, but I'd bet it will.
Ah yes, children's curiosity! That's precisely the only use, right there. When I was younger (a little over a decade ago, when I hadn't lived a decade yet) I used to get up early Sunday mornings and hang out with Dad in his study. And what did I read? The Encyclopedia, of course! And my life was greatly enriched by leafing through whatever volume took my fancy and reading interesting looking articles - those 1992 edition World Books seemed such a treasure trove of information in a computerless household. Little did I know about the innacuracies. (No, a seven year old might not care that the population of Zimbabwe is actually higher than that, but it's the PRINCIPLE, by golly.)
Now, however, it is becoming increasingly clear that children are the motivating force behind the continuing sales of Encyclopedia sets, as everyone knows that a younster's favorite activity is curling up on the couch and absorbing a wealth of mostly accurate knowledge from a book. This is not something that should be encouraged, if it gets out of hand it could be detrimental to the development of more authoritative and comprehensive sources of information. It really is all just a gimmick - maybe even a plot - just to keep us away from our beloved computer screens.
Totally agreed. My imagination has to work weather I'm in a world created by a book, a text adventure, *or* a graphics card. I would rather create my own pictures rather than fill in what's missing from the one on my screen.
The other aspect of text adventure games that attracts people is that there is often much more of a puzzle quality to them. Sometimes you need to go get a sandwich just to give your cranium a break so it doesn't start melting from frustration. The mental excercise abstract thinking required to figure things out in a world you can only see in your head is a lot more satisfying for me than fast-paced action is most of the time.
Why is everyone referring to this as digital rights management?
Because it is - it restricts how you can use the file. The fact that it also monitors listening habits puts it in the DRM and Spyware category and, unfortunately, the two are not mutually exclusive.
Ooh! Me! My house has multiple OS's - Mom & Dad (and bother) run Mac and I run Linux. That's three machines and two OS's right there, for personal use.
Now, please ignore the other Linux server and Windows box sitting next to me, as well as the other pile of machines in the basement. I am definitely in the geek circle, but I wouldn't classify the rest of my family that way. Of course, if I weren't around there would be one family computer and my brother wouldn't have gotten his PowerMac 8600 for free. So maybe this is still geek circle by association or something.
As if computer usage would tell about thoughts of a person...
Yeah, that was half my point, and great story.:^) It's really interesting how stereotypes flesh out and how much less true they are than they are portrayed most of the time.
Interesting. My post was actually intended to be solidly toung-in-cheek humour, but I shall now drop all pretext of that and carry on with serious discussion.
You are correct in saying that I have my own reasons. I run Linux because it's free, I'm cheap, and I like figuring things out. I run Macs because that's what I cut my computer teeth on and they don't require as much maintenance as linux or windows. I run Linux on Macs because that's the hardware I had around at the time I first picked up linux, and old Powermacs still make pretty decent backup servers/fw-routers. (And though I didn't mention it, I do actually have a couple Windows machines around for compatibility and diversity reasons.)
The thing I find interesting about your logic is that the parent I replied to implied that Mac users are overwelmingly Democrats. (I think this is also generally thought about the Linux crowd.) However, when I say that I run Macs and Linux both, you apparently conclude that I am not only *not* a Democrat, but a full fledged follower of Bush. Fascinating conclusion.
I would generally call myself a Republican, though Conservative would probably be a better term. There are a few Republicans I don't really agree with, including Bush sometimes. What I don't understand is how President Bush isn't really a Republican. Your assertion that he is a RINO seems to imply a view that "he *says* he's a Republican, kids, but Noo, don't you believe/him/."
Maybe my being familiar with Official GOP Positions would help understanding here. However, would you mind elaborating on that point and/or pointing to other sources that illustrate your view?
(And I realize this might be exactly why you posted AC (though, if so, it looks like you prefer to make assertions as fact without being willing to debate it) and that you might not see this. But I'm still curious to find out what other people think and *why*. That's always the more interesting part. (Especially if your UID is under 30k. That means you're older and wiser than I am.))
While lower prices for desktop machines is great, we need to find a way to get laptops down to a price point where they can be used to replace textbooks for highschool students.
Why? I'm a college student, and would honestly rather lug books around than read a computer screen. Reading any large amount of literature on a screen (especially laptop screens) makes my eyes and head a lot more tired a lot faster than a regular dead-tree book. They're also not as comfortable to hold on to - laptops are a little more awkward to curl up on the couch with.
The Energizer Bunny will be starring as Darth Rabbit in the first Star Wars episode ever to centre around an holiday.
Spoiler: as noted elsewhere in this thread, yes, the Sith Easter Eggs are indeed Darth chocolate.
Re:Integrated pointing stick-keyboard not reviewed
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I personally have not used it, but how about the Endura Pro from pckeyboard.com? I believe they are also the holders of the IBM Model M patent - clicky feel *and* and the ergo pointer stick! w00t!
All I know is that of the half-dozen engineers I know (most of whom work for National or Fairchild Semiconductor), the overwhelming majority of their offspring are female.
Maybe we need to break this in to more detailed demographic data, taking into account the geopolitical and ethnic locale, type of industry, etc.
I must say, it is very pleasurable to finally read an article on such a well designed web site. I congratulate them on their superior column width and small ad space.
Google is cleaner but displays less and their colour scheme chould do with some work.
It looks to me pretty much like the 'Google Blue' they use on their search results pages. Personal preference, of course, but I just think it looks like Google.
The edit option displays very poorly against a similar shade background.
It would be my personal inclination to design them that way. It's there when you need it, when you need it you can see it, but otherwise it's less obtrusive. I don't plan on changing things around more than a couple times a week, and for that it is plenty visible. The rest of the time it presents no visual distraction from the things I want to see. This is probably a very nit-picky sort of point, though.
I agree. I use Konqueror a majority of the time, and along with tabbed browsing and KDE's session management it has become both the boon and the bane of my internet life. (No, I'm not telling how many tabs I have open right now...)
My only complaint is that I wish Konqueror would work nicely with Gmail, Blogger, Del.icio.us etc. Having to start up another browser (Firefox) in order to blog or post to my del.icio.us bookmarks is a pain. Just give me that and my world is complete.
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Let's look at the vertical, slot-loading optical drive. Yes, folks, every time you want to insert a disc, you will peer closely at the drive to see which way the letters are and then insert the disk properly. After doing this a few times, you will notice a small, white arrow pointing to the top of the disk. Wait, does it point to the top of the disk or the top of the drive? Does it mean that the disc goes with the label side towards the arrow or that the top goes the way the arrow points? A well designed product (such as most horizontal drives or even vertical trayloaders) make it reasonably obvious which way things go - good natural mapping.
Now let's say I want to add or remove a piece of hardware. Can I hotplug it? Don't even bother building something like this if you can't. It's designed to look like a bookshelf and people will expect it to behave similarly and allow any piece (ok, maybe not the CPU) to be added or removed at whim. It's design, by intent, invites change. Now assume I *can* hotplug it. Great - now can I just pull the drive out or do I have to unlatch it somehow first? Where's the latch button? (Pure speculation, but it's probably very artfully designed - small and black on the black part somewhere. Maybe it's marked.)
I will congratulate the designers for making sure the connectors on the devices are fairly obviously dissimilar from side to side, providing physical constraint as to "right-side up". I will not dwell too much on that fact, however, because from what I can see of their mockup image (warning: big image) the connectors are mirrored from one side to the other. In other words, either 1) devices designed for one side will not fit on the other side, or 2) if devices may be flipped to fit either side, then the lights and controls also reverse position. Harping on the optical drive for a moment, it would be even more confusing to reconfigure and then be habitually putting a CD in upside down.
And of course we must have my $0.02 on DRM - their model will mess with people's heads. If you call it a computer, people will expect it to operate and be capable of what their assumption of 'computer' is and they will use it based on their assumptions of how a computer is supposed to work. Having different rights to different devices will drive people nuts. It's all the same computer, why doesn't this hard drive let me do this when this other drive will? Why does it matter whether I rented this DVD from MegaMovie or this whole series on harddisk from ZipTV? Actually, that's pure speculation again - hopefully it won't matter, but I'd bet it will.
JtM
Now, however, it is becoming increasingly clear that children are the motivating force behind the continuing sales of Encyclopedia sets, as everyone knows that a younster's favorite activity is curling up on the couch and absorbing a wealth of mostly accurate knowledge from a book. This is not something that should be encouraged, if it gets out of hand it could be detrimental to the development of more authoritative and comprehensive sources of information. It really is all just a gimmick - maybe even a plot - just to keep us away from our beloved computer screens.
The other aspect of text adventure games that attracts people is that there is often much more of a puzzle quality to them. Sometimes you need to go get a sandwich just to give your cranium a break so it doesn't start melting from frustration. The mental excercise abstract thinking required to figure things out in a world you can only see in your head is a lot more satisfying for me than fast-paced action is most of the time.
Because it is - it restricts how you can use the file. The fact that it also monitors listening habits puts it in the DRM and Spyware category and, unfortunately, the two are not mutually exclusive.
Now, please ignore the other Linux server and Windows box sitting next to me, as well as the other pile of machines in the basement. I am definitely in the geek circle, but I wouldn't classify the rest of my family that way. Of course, if I weren't around there would be one family computer and my brother wouldn't have gotten his PowerMac 8600 for free. So maybe this is still geek circle by association or something.
But of course! And you could be the Sol owner!
So Art Of Illusion doesn't count? It's free and does animation, even if it hasn't been used for any real films AFAIK.
Yeah, that was half my point, and great story. :^) It's really interesting how stereotypes flesh out and how much less true they are than they are portrayed most of the time.
You are correct in saying that I have my own reasons. I run Linux because it's free, I'm cheap, and I like figuring things out. I run Macs because that's what I cut my computer teeth on and they don't require as much maintenance as linux or windows. I run Linux on Macs because that's the hardware I had around at the time I first picked up linux, and old Powermacs still make pretty decent backup servers/fw-routers. (And though I didn't mention it, I do actually have a couple Windows machines around for compatibility and diversity reasons.)
The thing I find interesting about your logic is that the parent I replied to implied that Mac users are overwelmingly Democrats. (I think this is also generally thought about the Linux crowd.) However, when I say that I run Macs and Linux both, you apparently conclude that I am not only *not* a Democrat, but a full fledged follower of Bush. Fascinating conclusion.
I would generally call myself a Republican, though Conservative would probably be a better term. There are a few Republicans I don't really agree with, including Bush sometimes. What I don't understand is how President Bush isn't really a Republican. Your assertion that he is a RINO seems to imply a view that "he *says* he's a Republican, kids, but Noo, don't you believe /him/."
Maybe my being familiar with Official GOP Positions would help understanding here. However, would you mind elaborating on that point and/or pointing to other sources that illustrate your view?
(And I realize this might be exactly why you posted AC (though, if so, it looks like you prefer to make assertions as fact without being willing to debate it) and that you might not see this. But I'm still curious to find out what other people think and *why*. That's always the more interesting part. (Especially if your UID is under 30k. That means you're older and wiser than I am.))
So, what if I run Linux PCs, Linux Macs, MacOS Macs, *and* I voted for Bush?
I wouldn't worry about that, global warming will probably kill us first.
Why? I'm a college student, and would honestly rather lug books around than read a computer screen. Reading any large amount of literature on a screen (especially laptop screens) makes my eyes and head a lot more tired a lot faster than a regular dead-tree book. They're also not as comfortable to hold on to - laptops are a little more awkward to curl up on the couch with.
Spoiler: as noted elsewhere in this thread, yes, the Sith Easter Eggs are indeed Darth chocolate.
I personally have not used it, but how about the Endura Pro from pckeyboard.com? I believe they are also the holders of the IBM Model M patent - clicky feel *and* and the ergo pointer stick! w00t!
Maybe we need to break this in to more detailed demographic data, taking into account the geopolitical and ethnic locale, type of industry, etc.
Welcome to Slashdot, where polite, factually correct posts are modded +5 Funny.
I must say, it is very pleasurable to finally read an article on such a well designed web site. I congratulate them on their superior column width and small ad space.
Yes, but animals are not Human. Humans are a specialized subclass of animal, if you will.
It looks to me pretty much like the 'Google Blue' they use on their search results pages. Personal preference, of course, but I just think it looks like Google.
The edit option displays very poorly against a similar shade background.
It would be my personal inclination to design them that way. It's there when you need it, when you need it you can see it, but otherwise it's less obtrusive. I don't plan on changing things around more than a couple times a week, and for that it is plenty visible. The rest of the time it presents no visual distraction from the things I want to see. This is probably a very nit-picky sort of point, though.
Even if you have a full-auto, it's still not really point and click, it's technically more like point and KABOOM!
So much for being clandestine. Your plans have been thwarted! Mwuahahahahaha.
I'm sitting here reading this while eating chicken soup and toast. Should I be worried about anything?
I have a very personal relationship with his food, you...er, what's "insensitive clod" in latin?
My only complaint is that I wish Konqueror would work nicely with Gmail, Blogger, Del.icio.us etc. Having to start up another browser (Firefox) in order to blog or post to my del.icio.us bookmarks is a pain. Just give me that and my world is complete.
Shouldn't that read "sharing that there code"?