The premise of this article is that zebra striping is to aid people finding the data they are looking for faster. I think that is not as much the case as it is to help people keep track of the data once they have found it.
They noted that when people found the row they were looking for they usually highlighted that row somehow, either with a mouse select or using their own finger on the screen. This is what I think the main usefulness of zebra striping is: to help the user to visually keep track of the data on a selected row (and not necessarily in finding the row). Once you find the row you are looking for, it is easy to lose the row when scanning across it. One can end up mistakenly looking at data from the row above or below, especially if the row is long and requires scrolling. And even more so when there are tens or hundreds of rows (or more) in the results, making it easier to lose track of the row being looked at.
If people find the need to 'manually' zebra stripe the row, it is better then to provide this to them in the software. Especially if it aids them in reducing errors in reading data and thus allowing them to work faster. Even if they are not searching the rows faster.
This is a big mistake and quite arrogant of the developers. The developers should never impose their belief on how a user should use the software. If people want to use the desktop as a file dump, then let them. A developer should NEVER force the user to do something like saving files to the desktop. So many people do this. All it will do is annoy the crap out of people. And if people don't like how it works, they won't use it. I see many instances of this type of behavior from developers writing business applications. They want to dictate to the business how the business should do business. When in fact they should write programs the way business wants to do business. Similar for KDE. If people want to save files to the desktop, they should write the software to allow people to save files to the desktop.
You'd think with the level of intelligence needed to work with computers that people who view this site would react with thinking as opposed to emotion. It also kind of makes me think that a lot of people are spoiled these days. They all want their own way and don't understand it doesn't always work that way. And if you don't sometimes compromise, you will end up with what you were really afraid of. Thanks for the support.
So I'm a troll... must have offended some animal rights activist moderators. No sense of humour. Oh well, need to get a ham sandwhich with a roast beef garnish. Maybe I'll have some rabbit stuffed with duck on the side. I'll put the suckling pig on to roast for dinner after that. Mmmmmmmmmmmm!
These PETA pushers must be Born Again Christians who don't believe in evolution. I believe humans evolved eating meat and other things. In fact I believe in the theory that proto-humans' brains got bigger after they started eating meat and animal fat, and especially after they started cooking it... when the skull didn't have to devote so much room for jaw muscles.
One of the best sources of thiamine is meat. Now I have to go feed my pet lion some tofu.
The 80% number was the number of people that were not satisfied enough to vote yes.
So then, why did not the 80% form a consensus that they should vote 'no'? Saying that they were not satisfied enough to vote 'yes', does not mean they vote 'no'. There is no such thing as an 'implicit no'. If you are in a meeting and don't want something to happen, you say so. You say no. And if enough say no, there is a consensus. Saying you don't like it enough to say yes, and hoping the other people have a strong enough back bone to say 'no' for you is a cop out.
Bottom line, they didn't form a consensus saying 'no' to OOXML. Even in your own comment you admit the majority couldn't come to a consensus. So here is the one guy who could make a decision looking at a bunch of people, who through their own inability to come together on something probably decided that, if they couldn't say "no", amid the storm of protests that seemed to be kicking up, why should he say no. And approved it. You think if he was faced with a whole group of people united in opposing his approving this issue, he would so easily be able to do so and make it stick? Get real. If you are responsible for making decisions, make them. Don't sit on fence posts looking for grey areas. You see how well it worked for John Kerry? You see how well it worked for OOXML opponents?
It said there were 2 for and 2 against, and about 80% of the people couldn't reach a consensus (sorry folks, 80% saying they could not find a consensus is not the same thing as a consensus against OOXML). Now it doesn't surprise me that a bunch of computer experts in a room couldn't reach a consensus. Getting any computer people to agree on something is like herding cats... it is very difficult. But maybe that is a lesson for people. Some times you have to agree on something. I don't think there is any moral high ground to rail against this bureaucrat who was trying to do his job. He was in a room where, by this article's admission, no one could agree on anything. And a decision still had to be made. The experts it seems weren't willing to come to some common ground and give a coherent recommendation, so he made one himself.
Now hear this!: I don't like OOXML. It is mainly my distrust of MS, I will admit. But they have a track record that doesn't lend itself to trust. However, I still say that computer folks have to start to learn that there are times they can't just go off in their own direction. There are times you have to work together and compromise with the person sitting with you or across the table.
Going by this article, these Norwegian experts couldn't reach a consensus and we see what happened. If 80% had said OOXML is not a good choice and it should not be backed by Norway, I could see people being upset. But it said 2 were for, 2 against, and 80% couldn't come together on anything. That means this was a typical techy cluster **** where no one wanted to give up on their own point. (It is also why we have non techy project managers... they seem to be able to point in a direction and say go... and not worry if it is perfect first.) Suggestion: smarten the **** up and learn to cooperated with someone else for a change. You can't alway "fork" choices in life.
Yeah and contrary to what a lot of folks in the U.S. think, Canada lost more jobs to the U.S. than the U.S. did to Canada when free trade came in. Jobs that moved to states like South Carolina and Arkansas, where the labour laws are more lax and the pay way less. Then they lost the jobs to Mexico. Mind you some jobs skipped going to America and went right to Mexico. And Canada lost a lot of control over their own oil and natural gas supply. So let Obama or Clinton cancel NAFTA if they get elected. Canada can get a better deal for its oil and gas then... retain more rights on its own resources.
This is just a plane stupid comment. There were plenty of Canadian companies and strategic industries sold off wholesale to foreign interests during the Liberal party's time in power. Including Stelco and Inco. Not to mention allowing non Canadian monopolies to develop strategic resources (like the diamond mines in the north... DeBeers or DeBeers subsidies). So put a sock in it. I've seen Harper defend Canada's national interests far more than Chretien (who was concerned more with lining his and his cronies pockets... e.g. golf courses, free driveways, and the advertising scandal in Quebec). So get off your high horse. BTW I used to vote Liberal until the reign of bullshit got too deep.
My favourite line from the show MASH was when Hawkeye announced he was a 'reformed druid'... "I worship bushes." I don't know how it slipped past the censors of the day.... probably too sly for their narrow imagination.:D I laughed my ass off.
The US doesn't block this kind of thing on sovereignty grounds -- although to be fair it may be because the current administration doesn't understand that US sovereignty has any geographic limits...
I call bullshit. See what would happen if Lockheed Martin tried to build their new fighter planes in a different country. Or sell off their satellite division to another country. It would go over like a lead balloon in a wind storm. Of course that wouldn't happen, the U.S. would never let companies sell off that kind of technology to another country.
Note that there is a historic sensitivity in Canada to selling off to other countries or otherwise dismantling high tech companies. Especially when said companies that could place the country in a very competitive place, economically and in a technical sense. Canada severely shot itself in the foot before... the pain just subsided over the past decade or so.
It should be like car insurance... you have a bad track record, you pay more. When it comes to sports it can be said in general that it will actually reduce the cost to the health insurance provider because fit people get sick less (generally). Unless your sport is free rock climbing say:). Then your premium should go up.
If you abuse drugs... or for the hippies out there who don't like that term... if you recreationally shoot heroin for example (and if you are addicted), you should pay HUGE sums of money for health insurance. And if you can't afford it, that's your own problem. And if you overdose with no health insurance, fuck you. Die. I'm tired of supporting through my tax dollars and increased health premiums useless fucks who ruin their own lives. People, take responsibility for your actions.
Bell now also wants to limit the amount of downloads you can make per billing period and charge $5 per gigabyte download over that limit. Up to something like $30 extra. But who says it will stay at a maximum of $30.
I wish there was something in the middle. I agree that the head first books are a bit over the top. But they seem to be accurate. On the other hand, I can't stay awake for more than 10 or 15 minutes when I read something like, say, the gang of four book. It's like having Henry Kissinger as a professor when you have a hangover and two hours of sleep.
Java is getting like this now... but mainly because everybody and their dog want to have their own framework. We are frameworked out the fucking wazoo. Java has so many splintered frameworks and technologies it's sick. Say what you want about C or C++, but it was great that it had a simple standard. The other problem with Java is even more frustrating.... the headhunters want 15 years experience in a 12 year old technology.
Except they run above ground and are called railways. And it is way cheaper to dig the holes for railways. There aren't any!!! Hah!, ha ha ha! This is just another way for others to spend our money in unneeded ways because it seems cool.
Take the ten thousand dollars, multiply it by ten thousand, and use that to fly congressmen and women and senators to luxury resorts; buy the kids and grandkids of same tuition to ivy league universities; get them jobs on the boards of major corporations that pay big money with little or no responsibility... etc. etc. etc. If that doesn't work use the remaining money to find the weaknesses of same and exploit them. Just like the people who are paid to advocate software patents to legislators. Then you will get rid of the software patents. You have to fight fire with fire.
Nice polite little information campaigns and essay contests talking about giving it to the 'man' won't do squat. The only people who will listen to those are the people who already agree with you.
with no intent to reflect anyone's real world attitudes
ummmmmmmmmmmm.... no. On at least a couple of projects I have encountered this exact attitude from management who not seemed to think it more important to dress the part than to actually know how to do the job.
Slashdot Mirror
The premise of this article is that zebra striping is to aid people finding the data they are looking for faster. I think that is not as much the case as it is to help people keep track of the data once they have found it.
They noted that when people found the row they were looking for they usually highlighted that row somehow, either with a mouse select or using their own finger on the screen. This is what I think the main usefulness of zebra striping is: to help the user to visually keep track of the data on a selected row (and not necessarily in finding the row). Once you find the row you are looking for, it is easy to lose the row when scanning across it. One can end up mistakenly looking at data from the row above or below, especially if the row is long and requires scrolling. And even more so when there are tens or hundreds of rows (or more) in the results, making it easier to lose track of the row being looked at.
If people find the need to 'manually' zebra stripe the row, it is better then to provide this to them in the software. Especially if it aids them in reducing errors in reading data and thus allowing them to work faster. Even if they are not searching the rows faster.
IANAL
This is a big mistake and quite arrogant of the developers. The developers should never impose their belief on how a user should use the software. If people want to use the desktop as a file dump, then let them. A developer should NEVER force the user to do something like saving files to the desktop. So many people do this. All it will do is annoy the crap out of people. And if people don't like how it works, they won't use it. I see many instances of this type of behavior from developers writing business applications. They want to dictate to the business how the business should do business. When in fact they should write programs the way business wants to do business. Similar for KDE. If people want to save files to the desktop, they should write the software to allow people to save files to the desktop.
You'd think with the level of intelligence needed to work with computers that people who view this site would react with thinking as opposed to emotion. It also kind of makes me think that a lot of people are spoiled these days. They all want their own way and don't understand it doesn't always work that way. And if you don't sometimes compromise, you will end up with what you were really afraid of. Thanks for the support.
So I'm a troll... must have offended some animal rights activist moderators. No sense of humour. Oh well, need to get a ham sandwhich with a roast beef garnish. Maybe I'll have some rabbit stuffed with duck on the side. I'll put the suckling pig on to roast for dinner after that. Mmmmmmmmmmmm!
These PETA pushers must be Born Again Christians who don't believe in evolution. I believe humans evolved eating meat and other things. In fact I believe in the theory that proto-humans' brains got bigger after they started eating meat and animal fat, and especially after they started cooking it... when the skull didn't have to devote so much room for jaw muscles.
One of the best sources of thiamine is meat. Now I have to go feed my pet lion some tofu.
If we weren't meant to eat meat, it wouldn't taste so good.
I belong to PETA by the way. I'm a Person Eating Tasty Animals.
So then, why did not the 80% form a consensus that they should vote 'no'? Saying that they were not satisfied enough to vote 'yes', does not mean they vote 'no'. There is no such thing as an 'implicit no'. If you are in a meeting and don't want something to happen, you say so. You say no. And if enough say no, there is a consensus. Saying you don't like it enough to say yes, and hoping the other people have a strong enough back bone to say 'no' for you is a cop out.
Bottom line, they didn't form a consensus saying 'no' to OOXML. Even in your own comment you admit the majority couldn't come to a consensus. So here is the one guy who could make a decision looking at a bunch of people, who through their own inability to come together on something probably decided that, if they couldn't say "no", amid the storm of protests that seemed to be kicking up, why should he say no. And approved it. You think if he was faced with a whole group of people united in opposing his approving this issue, he would so easily be able to do so and make it stick? Get real. If you are responsible for making decisions, make them. Don't sit on fence posts looking for grey areas. You see how well it worked for John Kerry? You see how well it worked for OOXML opponents?
Flamebait?... whatever.
It said there were 2 for and 2 against, and about 80% of the people couldn't reach a consensus (sorry folks, 80% saying they could not find a consensus is not the same thing as a consensus against OOXML). Now it doesn't surprise me that a bunch of computer experts in a room couldn't reach a consensus. Getting any computer people to agree on something is like herding cats... it is very difficult. But maybe that is a lesson for people. Some times you have to agree on something. I don't think there is any moral high ground to rail against this bureaucrat who was trying to do his job. He was in a room where, by this article's admission, no one could agree on anything. And a decision still had to be made. The experts it seems weren't willing to come to some common ground and give a coherent recommendation, so he made one himself.
Now hear this!: I don't like OOXML. It is mainly my distrust of MS, I will admit. But they have a track record that doesn't lend itself to trust. However, I still say that computer folks have to start to learn that there are times they can't just go off in their own direction. There are times you have to work together and compromise with the person sitting with you or across the table.
Going by this article, these Norwegian experts couldn't reach a consensus and we see what happened. If 80% had said OOXML is not a good choice and it should not be backed by Norway, I could see people being upset. But it said 2 were for, 2 against, and 80% couldn't come together on anything. That means this was a typical techy cluster **** where no one wanted to give up on their own point. (It is also why we have non techy project managers... they seem to be able to point in a direction and say go... and not worry if it is perfect first.) Suggestion: smarten the **** up and learn to cooperated with someone else for a change. You can't alway "fork" choices in life.
Yeah and contrary to what a lot of folks in the U.S. think, Canada lost more jobs to the U.S. than the U.S. did to Canada when free trade came in. Jobs that moved to states like South Carolina and Arkansas, where the labour laws are more lax and the pay way less. Then they lost the jobs to Mexico. Mind you some jobs skipped going to America and went right to Mexico. And Canada lost a lot of control over their own oil and natural gas supply. So let Obama or Clinton cancel NAFTA if they get elected. Canada can get a better deal for its oil and gas then... retain more rights on its own resources.
not quite the same level of technology as satellite manufacturer, or space station robots.
This is just a plane stupid comment. There were plenty of Canadian companies and strategic industries sold off wholesale to foreign interests during the Liberal party's time in power. Including Stelco and Inco. Not to mention allowing non Canadian monopolies to develop strategic resources (like the diamond mines in the north... DeBeers or DeBeers subsidies). So put a sock in it. I've seen Harper defend Canada's national interests far more than Chretien (who was concerned more with lining his and his cronies pockets... e.g. golf courses, free driveways, and the advertising scandal in Quebec). So get off your high horse. BTW I used to vote Liberal until the reign of bullshit got too deep.
My favourite line from the show MASH was when Hawkeye announced he was a 'reformed druid'... "I worship bushes." I don't know how it slipped past the censors of the day.... probably too sly for their narrow imagination. :D I laughed my ass off.
I call bullshit. See what would happen if Lockheed Martin tried to build their new fighter planes in a different country. Or sell off their satellite division to another country. It would go over like a lead balloon in a wind storm. Of course that wouldn't happen, the U.S. would never let companies sell off that kind of technology to another country.
Note that there is a historic sensitivity in Canada to selling off to other countries or otherwise dismantling high tech companies. Especially when said companies that could place the country in a very competitive place, economically and in a technical sense. Canada severely shot itself in the foot before... the pain just subsided over the past decade or so.
It should be like car insurance... you have a bad track record, you pay more. When it comes to sports it can be said in general that it will actually reduce the cost to the health insurance provider because fit people get sick less (generally). Unless your sport is free rock climbing say :). Then your premium should go up.
If you abuse drugs... or for the hippies out there who don't like that term... if you recreationally shoot heroin for example (and if you are addicted), you should pay HUGE sums of money for health insurance. And if you can't afford it, that's your own problem. And if you overdose with no health insurance, fuck you. Die. I'm tired of supporting through my tax dollars and increased health premiums useless fucks who ruin their own lives. People, take responsibility for your actions.
Bell now also wants to limit the amount of downloads you can make per billing period and charge $5 per gigabyte download over that limit. Up to something like $30 extra. But who says it will stay at a maximum of $30.
Personally I was a little disappointed the way Jackson turned Frodo into such a pussy. It kind of soured the movies for me.
The first movie was a log if you get my drift. I agree entirely with what you said.
I wish there was something in the middle. I agree that the head first books are a bit over the top. But they seem to be accurate. On the other hand, I can't stay awake for more than 10 or 15 minutes when I read something like, say, the gang of four book. It's like having Henry Kissinger as a professor when you have a hangover and two hours of sleep.
Java is getting like this now... but mainly because everybody and their dog want to have their own framework. We are frameworked out the fucking wazoo. Java has so many splintered frameworks and technologies it's sick. Say what you want about C or C++, but it was great that it had a simple standard. The other problem with Java is even more frustrating.... the headhunters want 15 years experience in a 12 year old technology.
With marketing like this, the French taxi industry doesn't need enemies.
or better yet, some bully hacks someone's bionic arm: hey kid, why do you keep hitting yourself? (mouse click - whap! mouse click - whap!) hey hey, you shouldn't hit yourself man (mouse click - slap! mouse click - slap!)...
Except they run above ground and are called railways. And it is way cheaper to dig the holes for railways. There aren't any!!! Hah!, ha ha ha! This is just another way for others to spend our money in unneeded ways because it seems cool.
Take the ten thousand dollars, multiply it by ten thousand, and use that to fly congressmen and women and senators to luxury resorts; buy the kids and grandkids of same tuition to ivy league universities; get them jobs on the boards of major corporations that pay big money with little or no responsibility... etc. etc. etc. If that doesn't work use the remaining money to find the weaknesses of same and exploit them. Just like the people who are paid to advocate software patents to legislators. Then you will get rid of the software patents. You have to fight fire with fire.
Nice polite little information campaigns and essay contests talking about giving it to the 'man' won't do squat. The only people who will listen to those are the people who already agree with you.