Nearly identical? Nope, not to the millions of victims of neurodegenerative disorders who Bush is robbing of a cure with his fundamentalist stance on stem cell research. Not to the millions of elderly who depend on Social Security and Medicare benefits, which will have to be drastically cut thanks to Bush's happy-go-lucky attitude towards the gigantic budget deficit.
Look, real life is about compromise. For better or for worse, we live under a two-party system, just as Americans before us have for close to 250 years. Voting for Nader isn't going to change our system--it'll just make the fringe he represents look even more extremist and out of touch with the needs of everyday Americans.
I'm repeating myself with this post; you might want to read this editorial I wrote the other day.
That wasn't my point... Your argument seems to be "if it's on my property, I should be able to do what I want with it." I was trying to point out that that position, while attractive, is neither logical nor valid. Taking satellite TV without paying for it, or for that matter power from the electric utility, ultimately hurts everybody else; that's why we have laws making it illegal.
From a theoretical standpoint, the costs of losing trust are very high. Some would say that's why we have laws at all.
Regarding apples and oranges, I have to admit I hate analogies as much as anyone.:-) So I apologize for the (facile) analogy I was making in my earlier post.
And if parents don't want you murdering their children and eating them for Halloween dinner, I suppose they need to stop sending their little ghosts and princesses up to your front door? Sorry, I don't buy it.
It's not just on farms, either. Did you hear about this ("Teachers College Student Dies in Freak Accident," Columbia Daily Spectator)?
Apparently almost 300 objects carrying stray current--metal grates, service boxes, even lamp poles--have been identified around the city since this article was written. IIRC, there was even 120 volts found to be running through a lamppost one block from Times Square. This according to the NYT.
Just another thing to consider as you walk to work tomorrow...
That's not true either--many installs that perform static linking on executables (on the startup volume) do NOT require a restart. The iLife '04 installer, for example, relinks damn near everything on your disk, but doesn't require a reboot.
And while it's true the reboot dialog doesn't go away, you can always minimize it and forget it's there. Which is what I do when I'm working on something. Then I reboot at the end of the day.
No, this study's purpose was different from what you assume. Its purpose was finding out which OSes were easiest to hack when specifically targeted. Given this, the study's exclusion of worms that spread indiscriminately seems perfectly justified.
Remember too that security holes are a prerequisite for worms to spread, meaning that even excluding worms, Windows should have suffered from these holes. That this is apparently not the case (assuming the study is reliable) should give us pause.
It's not me trying to solve the problem--it's a bunch of very smart companies (TI, Intel, Motorola, etc.). Which leads me to believe that Bluetooth does, in fact, suffer from some important limitations. Why else go to the trouble of developing a UWB spec?
Ultrawideband technology is looming on the horizon, with silicon from Intel reportedly due by the end of this year and the first consumer products due out in 2005. It's supposed to start out at 400Mb/s and ramp up from there--so by comparison, Bluetooth's bandwidth just plain stinks.
Can anyone "in the know" explain the difference between the Motorola/XtremeSpectrum and the Texas Instruments/Intel implementations of UWB? Which is supposed to be better? Which is higher bandwidth?
"They were designed by - and I hate to say it because I am one of them - engineers," Mr. Newby said.
Mr. Nielsen said: "... They're overloaded with features you don't really need except once a year or once a lifetime."
Honestly, folks. He might as well be talking about Linux distros, or open source software generally. In my experience, open source UIs are just plain terrible from a user perspective (though perhaps not from an engineer's).
How is free/open source software ever going to replace anything on the desktop if the people who are attracted to these projects are almost exclusively engineers and programmers? The art of UI design is very different from the art of programming, and I think the open source "community," such as it is, needs to be more aware of the need for skilled UI designers.
How to get UI people to join open source projects, however, is a mystery to me. Any ideas?
But if I should come up with the same idea through my own research whilst being completely unaware of yours, I shouldn't have the right to call my idea my own and have it recognised as such?
That's correct; you don't own an idea unless you're the first person to think of it. This creates an incentive to be creative, not lazy, and to keep up to date on the latest developments in your field.
This can be disputed, of course, but I think that's the reasoning.
I dunno dude. Like you, I'm a designer (print and web), but I think if you ask around, you'll find that the reason a lot of designers prefer working on Macs is that the Mac is somehow inspiring; it drives people to be creative; it feels less like a computer and more like an extension of your creative soul. The Mac has that special je ne sais quoi that Windows lacks, and--I'll probably get modded troll for this--Linux desktop environments, in my humble estimation, lack too. And I think that to a lot of people, that mysterious something is worth the Apple premium.
So it's not just about market share. It's about how many graphic artists actually want to work on Linux, and while I don't doubt there are a lot of talented designers who would be more than happy to switch to KDE or Gnome, I don't think that number is going to be anywhere near the number of people who for some reason or another are attached to the Mac environment.
Yes, I am aware of that, but it doesn't change my argument. Have you used Safari and Firefox on Mac OS X? It's pretty obvious that Firefox is suffering from a severe case of "I want to look and behave just like Safari," and doing a bad job of it. I agree that ripping off features is all well and good, but there's a point beyond which you have to ask why you wouldn't just use the browser that Firefox is trying so hard to emulate.
I thought "Wow this is just like Safari without the metal."
That was my first thought too. The Firefox guys ripped the whole interface off Safari and still managed to get everything wrong, sometimes subtly wrong, sometimes blatantly wrong, but always wrong. Case in point: The rounded toolbar buttons that look great in Safari but look like utter shit in Firefox, especially when you start dragging them around and realize even that small degree of beauty is only skin deep. Or how about the ugly-ass preferences window that lacks even a cache control option? Hint to the developers: making a browser easy to use doesn't have to involve crippling its functionality.
That's what's so frustrating--the Mozilla project shows so much promise, but there's just so much shameless copying going on and not enough innovation in terms of UI features or anything else, and there's no sign that the developers will ever be made aware of how to deliver a polished, aesthetically pleasing product.
Yeah, I realize how I sound saying all this, but God help me if it's not how I really feel. Fucking hell.
I agree one hundred percent. Most software and hardware engineers, unfortunately, have stunted aesthetic sensibilities. And--this is completely offtopic--after having downloaded and tried the latest version of Mozilla for Mac ("Frankenfox" or whatever clumsy moniker they've most recently been calling it), I'd have to say that even the Mac-using geeks tend to have poor taste. They ripped all the most prominent UI features off Safari and didn't even manage to copy it right. This kind of behavior reeks of Microsoft, and let me tell you that is a company that lacks good taste (Luna? Clippy?).
One of these days I'll get around to writing a longer and more constructive flame.
Almost everything you said is wrong. Like the AC said, standard Mac gamma is usually 1.8. You can change this using ColorSync, of course. The first thing any self-respecting print or web professional does with a new Mac is to calibrate the display with the built-in color calibration utility, with which you can set a custom gamma and white point.
Slashdot Mirror
Nearly identical? Nope, not to the millions of victims of neurodegenerative disorders who Bush is robbing of a cure with his fundamentalist stance on stem cell research. Not to the millions of elderly who depend on Social Security and Medicare benefits, which will have to be drastically cut thanks to Bush's happy-go-lucky attitude towards the gigantic budget deficit.
Look, real life is about compromise. For better or for worse, we live under a two-party system, just as Americans before us have for close to 250 years. Voting for Nader isn't going to change our system--it'll just make the fringe he represents look even more extremist and out of touch with the needs of everyday Americans.
I'm repeating myself with this post; you might want to read this editorial I wrote the other day.
Well, you could always build one of these over your roof. :-)
That wasn't my point... Your argument seems to be "if it's on my property, I should be able to do what I want with it." I was trying to point out that that position, while attractive, is neither logical nor valid. Taking satellite TV without paying for it, or for that matter power from the electric utility, ultimately hurts everybody else; that's why we have laws making it illegal.
:-) So I apologize for the (facile) analogy I was making in my earlier post.
From a theoretical standpoint, the costs of losing trust are very high. Some would say that's why we have laws at all.
Regarding apples and oranges, I have to admit I hate analogies as much as anyone.
yours
And if parents don't want you murdering their children and eating them for Halloween dinner, I suppose they need to stop sending their little ghosts and princesses up to your front door? Sorry, I don't buy it.
It's not just on farms, either. Did you hear about this ("Teachers College Student Dies in Freak Accident," Columbia Daily Spectator)?
Apparently almost 300 objects carrying stray current--metal grates, service boxes, even lamp poles--have been identified around the city since this article was written. IIRC, there was even 120 volts found to be running through a lamppost one block from Times Square. This according to the NYT.
Just another thing to consider as you walk to work tomorrow...
yours
Funny, yes, but sheesh. Could you possibly be any more condescending?
If you're trying to change someone's opinion here, you might get better results if you watch the snide attitude. Just a thought.
Right, because Anonymous Coward has a stellar reputation to protect...
That's not true either--many installs that perform static linking on executables (on the startup volume) do NOT require a restart. The iLife '04 installer, for example, relinks damn near everything on your disk, but doesn't require a reboot.
And while it's true the reboot dialog doesn't go away, you can always minimize it and forget it's there. Which is what I do when I'm working on something. Then I reboot at the end of the day.
yours
No, this study's purpose was different from what you assume. Its purpose was finding out which OSes were easiest to hack when specifically targeted. Given this, the study's exclusion of worms that spread indiscriminately seems perfectly justified.
Remember too that security holes are a prerequisite for worms to spread, meaning that even excluding worms, Windows should have suffered from these holes. That this is apparently not the case (assuming the study is reliable) should give us pause.
YES! Exactly true. Thank you for being the first person in this discussion to see the forest despite the trees.
It's not me trying to solve the problem--it's a bunch of very smart companies (TI, Intel, Motorola, etc.). Which leads me to believe that Bluetooth does, in fact, suffer from some important limitations. Why else go to the trouble of developing a UWB spec?
Ultrawideband technology is looming on the horizon, with silicon from Intel reportedly due by the end of this year and the first consumer products due out in 2005. It's supposed to start out at 400Mb/s and ramp up from there--so by comparison, Bluetooth's bandwidth just plain stinks.
Can anyone "in the know" explain the difference between the Motorola/XtremeSpectrum and the Texas Instruments/Intel implementations of UWB? Which is supposed to be better? Which is higher bandwidth?
Honestly, folks. He might as well be talking about Linux distros, or open source software generally. In my experience, open source UIs are just plain terrible from a user perspective (though perhaps not from an engineer's).
How is free/open source software ever going to replace anything on the desktop if the people who are attracted to these projects are almost exclusively engineers and programmers? The art of UI design is very different from the art of programming, and I think the open source "community," such as it is, needs to be more aware of the need for skilled UI designers.
How to get UI people to join open source projects, however, is a mystery to me. Any ideas?
yours
Crap, forget it. I don't have the energy to complete this thought. Mod down appropriately.
Wiki hypocrisy
"how an app looks is trivial compared to what it can do"
It's not trivial. Replace "an app" with "your wife" and you'll see what I mean.
If you really want your work environment to look (and stink) like a sewer all day, every day, be my guest.
That's correct; you don't own an idea unless you're the first person to think of it. This creates an incentive to be creative, not lazy, and to keep up to date on the latest developments in your field.
This can be disputed, of course, but I think that's the reasoning.
yours
Yeah, basically. :-)
I dunno dude. Like you, I'm a designer (print and web), but I think if you ask around, you'll find that the reason a lot of designers prefer working on Macs is that the Mac is somehow inspiring; it drives people to be creative; it feels less like a computer and more like an extension of your creative soul. The Mac has that special je ne sais quoi that Windows lacks, and--I'll probably get modded troll for this--Linux desktop environments, in my humble estimation, lack too. And I think that to a lot of people, that mysterious something is worth the Apple premium.
So it's not just about market share. It's about how many graphic artists actually want to work on Linux, and while I don't doubt there are a lot of talented designers who would be more than happy to switch to KDE or Gnome, I don't think that number is going to be anywhere near the number of people who for some reason or another are attached to the Mac environment.
Thoughts?
yours
Yes, I am aware of that, but it doesn't change my argument. Have you used Safari and Firefox on Mac OS X? It's pretty obvious that Firefox is suffering from a severe case of "I want to look and behave just like Safari," and doing a bad job of it. I agree that ripping off features is all well and good, but there's a point beyond which you have to ask why you wouldn't just use the browser that Firefox is trying so hard to emulate.
yours
That was my first thought too. The Firefox guys ripped the whole interface off Safari and still managed to get everything wrong, sometimes subtly wrong, sometimes blatantly wrong, but always wrong. Case in point: The rounded toolbar buttons that look great in Safari but look like utter shit in Firefox, especially when you start dragging them around and realize even that small degree of beauty is only skin deep. Or how about the ugly-ass preferences window that lacks even a cache control option? Hint to the developers: making a browser easy to use doesn't have to involve crippling its functionality.
That's what's so frustrating--the Mozilla project shows so much promise, but there's just so much shameless copying going on and not enough innovation in terms of UI features or anything else, and there's no sign that the developers will ever be made aware of how to deliver a polished, aesthetically pleasing product.
Yeah, I realize how I sound saying all this, but God help me if it's not how I really feel. Fucking hell.
yours
I agree one hundred percent. Most software and hardware engineers, unfortunately, have stunted aesthetic sensibilities. And--this is completely offtopic--after having downloaded and tried the latest version of Mozilla for Mac ("Frankenfox" or whatever clumsy moniker they've most recently been calling it), I'd have to say that even the Mac-using geeks tend to have poor taste. They ripped all the most prominent UI features off Safari and didn't even manage to copy it right. This kind of behavior reeks of Microsoft, and let me tell you that is a company that lacks good taste (Luna? Clippy?).
One of these days I'll get around to writing a longer and more constructive flame.
yours
Why's this a troll? It's true.
yours
Almost everything you said is wrong. Like the AC said, standard Mac gamma is usually 1.8. You can change this using ColorSync, of course. The first thing any self-respecting print or web professional does with a new Mac is to calibrate the display with the built-in color calibration utility, with which you can set a custom gamma and white point.
I think that was Hitler's idea first.