I have no way of knowing how realistic the internal White House politics in West Wing are
The two most accurate and intriguing series about politics are Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister. They are both derived from excellent books of the same titles and, although they are British, they clearly portray what goes on in almost every government, with the understanding that there are minor differences of procedure and structure.
And the "I'd love to have America's youth thinking good things like the Mantra" describes Europe quite well. The difference between moralists on the Right and moralists on the Left is which morality they want to compel you to adopt.
You have to make a complaint about the comment quality before I show up. I'm the patron saint of comment quality. And arpeggios. But mostly just comment quality (I've pretty much gotten out of that other stuff).
This may be stepping a little out of bounds, (Jack Teagarden is in charge of disappointed commenters,) but: here's a basket of fruit and cheese.
It's too bad Eastern Europe wasn't as important to American interests as Afghanistan.
Yes, it is. American leadership in 1956 was wrong and we paid dearly for it. That's why we changed course later on and that's why we should continue an interventionist policy now.
Soviet Union never planned on a world revolution after the WW2.
That's correct. They planned on world consolidation under a Soviet banner. They poured money and resources into the Mideast, Eastern Europe, the Far East, Africa, and South and Central America because they were building client states. The Soviets never left the conquered territory of WWII, and they continued to invade and support invasions or revolutions in other nations, like Hungary, in the years that followed. They supported subversives throughout the world. They took initiative in launching the Korean War. They planned invasion of West Germany. They plotted the overthrows in Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Angola, Ethiopia, and other nations. Brezhnev created a team called "internationalists" who dressed as local citizens and mixed in with local populations until an order was given to start revolution.
It was and still is quite common to recruit 'false flag' informants by misleading targets into thinking they are being recruited by the CIA, or Mossad, or religious organizations, or peace and ecological protest organizations.
The 61st Meeting of the National Defense Council of the GDR even revealed the existence of large underground caverns with new street signs, new currencies, and medals for officers involved in an invasion of West Germany.
But you know what? I don't even need to bother. It doesn't matter what anybody says, you've made your mind up just as I have. Go crazy and believe what you want.
It's not hubris. It's defense against the Soviet Union. You may be too young to remember, but there was a time when a nation called the USSR was working to invade 3rd world countries and amass an empire. We helped stop that. And the people in, for example, Afghanistan, were very grateful for our help. When it was over, though, we simply left and let radical Muslims take over.
No, they don't hate us 'for our freedom.' But they also don't hate us for opposing the USSR. They hate us because we won't submit to their bloody, violent, backwards, worthless piece of crap religion. Islam has the goal of world domination and we are the targets because we won't submit to enslavement.
Or 3) They got locked into backward compatibility with a set of APIs and IT procedures they didn't plan on keeping in the first place. Yes, most of the DOS kruft is long gone but the mis-trained userbase and IT departments live on. And they don't want things done the right way--they want things done the familiar way. So Microsoft continues to deliver what its customers demand.
'Design elements that improve useability' are things that enable you to use something with greater ease as I read it, and if an element reduces the set of potential users it by definition reduces useability.
Take orphan words as an example. If the last word in a paragraph is on a line by itself, the eye has a harder time finding it. It's an absolute that reduces usability. Of course, as you state, locking down a format so this doesn't happen causes *other* problems. It's an inherent usability problem with autolayout and device independence. That's all I'm trying to get at here. The kind of control that allows for the absolutely *best* reading experience simply doesn't exist on the web.
I know what you're saying and you're right. But the idea that letting the computer just 'decide' what something should look like isn't the panacea that some have sold it as. Particularly with user interfaces. It's not as bad with documents, especially if there is very little real layout or design. But the more 'real' design and artwork you do, the worse autolayout looks.
It's a range though. If you just throw some text in <P> tags and put it on a server, it looks fine at any size on any device. You don't really lose anything because there was no effort put in to helping the reader in the first place. Once you start employing design elements to improve usability, they start degrading on different output devices.
That's one reason many people still prefer hard copy books to online documentation. A book can be carefully crafted by a graphic designer to be easy to read. Margins, line and page breaks, absolute sizing, color calibration, the list goes on and on. You'd be surprised how subtle design elements can have major psychological effects on your reading experience.
I just took a technical writing course, so I'm kind of stoked about this.:-)
I think the "indecency police" have gone too far, but I don't see any inconsistency in expecting satellite radio and broadcast radio to live by the same rules. (likewise cable and broadcast TV) With well over 80% of homes having cable or satellite, does it accomplish anything to keep Janet's nipple off CBS when it's perfectly legal to show it on MTV?
Well, I think this goes back to the original rationale for the FCC. The spectrum is considered to be public and therefore subject to restrictions. But if someone pays to have a cable run into his house, there's no cause to restrict what he is allowed to transmit along that cable.
Don't ask me why sattelite is exempt. I guess they just figured that it's "like cable" in that it's on demand. The people writing the laws are not generally technically inclined.
The problem really is that automatic proportional layout looks like crap compared to a document or interface designed by hand. The same goes for SVG icons. Yes, they scale up to any size. But the overall look and effect at larger sizes is *not* the same as at smaller sizes. And a larger icon designed by a good artist would look totally different than a simple "upscaled" small icon.
It's just too bad they don't have the source code. If they only had licensed source, CA could modify it to be whatever best suited their needs. Oh well. Maybe some day, someone will come up with an idea like that and put it into action. Heh, I'm such an idealistic bastard...
I think that would have been an excellent (and economically safe) solution to the Microsoft anti-trust trial. Unfortunately, everybody was focused on breaking up the company and the inevitable tech sector collapse that would have followed. And most of the people prosecuting the case were doing it for political reasons rather than practical reasons.
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The two most accurate and intriguing series about politics are Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister. They are both derived from excellent books of the same titles and, although they are British, they clearly portray what goes on in almost every government, with the understanding that there are minor differences of procedure and structure.
I think he's saying that he doesn't think they'll do anything wrong because of their past performance.
Come on! Paul Anka slices like a frickin hammer. You're not going to disagree with "The Only Important One on that Stage" now, are you?
And the "I'd love to have America's youth thinking good things like the Mantra" describes Europe quite well. The difference between moralists on the Right and moralists on the Left is which morality they want to compel you to adopt.
This may be stepping a little out of bounds, (Jack Teagarden is in charge of disappointed commenters,) but: here's a basket of fruit and cheese.
Welcome to Slashdot. Here's your basket of fruit and cheese.
You know, you wouldn't cough so much if you'd lay off the MJ.
Yes, it is. American leadership in 1956 was wrong and we paid dearly for it. That's why we changed course later on and that's why we should continue an interventionist policy now.
That's correct. They planned on world consolidation under a Soviet banner. They poured money and resources into the Mideast, Eastern Europe, the Far East, Africa, and South and Central America because they were building client states. The Soviets never left the conquered territory of WWII, and they continued to invade and support invasions or revolutions in other nations, like Hungary, in the years that followed. They supported subversives throughout the world. They took initiative in launching the Korean War. They planned invasion of West Germany. They plotted the overthrows in Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Angola, Ethiopia, and other nations. Brezhnev created a team called "internationalists" who dressed as local citizens and mixed in with local populations until an order was given to start revolution.
It was and still is quite common to recruit 'false flag' informants by misleading targets into thinking they are being recruited by the CIA, or Mossad, or religious organizations, or peace and ecological protest organizations.
The 61st Meeting of the National Defense Council of the GDR even revealed the existence of large underground caverns with new street signs, new currencies, and medals for officers involved in an invasion of West Germany.
But you know what? I don't even need to bother. It doesn't matter what anybody says, you've made your mind up just as I have. Go crazy and believe what you want.
No, but I don't see what it has to do with whether we should all become Muslims or die.
No. It's truth.
No, they don't hate us 'for our freedom.' But they also don't hate us for opposing the USSR. They hate us because we won't submit to their bloody, violent, backwards, worthless piece of crap religion. Islam has the goal of world domination and we are the targets because we won't submit to enslavement.
Or 3) They got locked into backward compatibility with a set of APIs and IT procedures they didn't plan on keeping in the first place. Yes, most of the DOS kruft is long gone but the mis-trained userbase and IT departments live on. And they don't want things done the right way--they want things done the familiar way. So Microsoft continues to deliver what its customers demand.
Careful. Don't want to choke on all that hyperbole.
Take orphan words as an example. If the last word in a paragraph is on a line by itself, the eye has a harder time finding it. It's an absolute that reduces usability. Of course, as you state, locking down a format so this doesn't happen causes *other* problems. It's an inherent usability problem with autolayout and device independence. That's all I'm trying to get at here. The kind of control that allows for the absolutely *best* reading experience simply doesn't exist on the web.
It's a range though. If you just throw some text in <P> tags and put it on a server, it looks fine at any size on any device. You don't really lose anything because there was no effort put in to helping the reader in the first place. Once you start employing design elements to improve usability, they start degrading on different output devices.
That's one reason many people still prefer hard copy books to online documentation. A book can be carefully crafted by a graphic designer to be easy to read. Margins, line and page breaks, absolute sizing, color calibration, the list goes on and on. You'd be surprised how subtle design elements can have major psychological effects on your reading experience.
I just took a technical writing course, so I'm kind of stoked about this. :-)
Well, I think this goes back to the original rationale for the FCC. The spectrum is considered to be public and therefore subject to restrictions. But if someone pays to have a cable run into his house, there's no cause to restrict what he is allowed to transmit along that cable.
Don't ask me why sattelite is exempt. I guess they just figured that it's "like cable" in that it's on demand. The people writing the laws are not generally technically inclined.
The problem really is that automatic proportional layout looks like crap compared to a document or interface designed by hand. The same goes for SVG icons. Yes, they scale up to any size. But the overall look and effect at larger sizes is *not* the same as at smaller sizes. And a larger icon designed by a good artist would look totally different than a simple "upscaled" small icon.
I had a degenerate Bose system. It wasn't always that way, but I knocked it over by accident one night.
It's just too bad they don't have the source code. If they only had licensed source, CA could modify it to be whatever best suited their needs. Oh well. Maybe some day, someone will come up with an idea like that and put it into action. Heh, I'm such an idealistic bastard...
I see a cottage industry springing up around one Mister Wile E. Coyote.
The art of looking under. I'll leave to your imagination exactly what they're looking under.
I think that would have been an excellent (and economically safe) solution to the Microsoft anti-trust trial. Unfortunately, everybody was focused on breaking up the company and the inevitable tech sector collapse that would have followed. And most of the people prosecuting the case were doing it for political reasons rather than practical reasons.
There are so few of us, somebody has to stand up and defend the cause...
Touché.