Okay. So Lois had her memory wiped by Superman after sleeping with him. That lets her off the hook a bit, but makes Superman even more of a nasty piece of work. But like you say, there's no reference to this in the film so people like me who don't know the previous films (and I'd imagine the kids that are a primary audience for this film mostly get included in that) have no way to know this. Still, even allowing this, she hooked up with James Marsden quickly enough that she thought it was his child. So they surely must have been seeing each other during the events of when she slept with Superman. Okay - I suppose it's possible she wasn't. She gets her memory wiped, goes out meets this guy, they have sex and 'whoops - I'm pregnant'. Okay, she gets a pass on that (and bonus points for James Marsden for doing the honourable and marrying his one-night stand). Her behaviour during the movie isn't exactly virtuous. But still, thanks for clearing that up.
I'm taking your word for this, mind you. I'm not being distrustful. But I remember Luthor waving the green rock at the kid and seeing the kid flinch and him asking whose kid this is. That happens after the child has displayed his powers, does it? The first thing I remember of that is him throwing a piano at someone which I thought was later? I've probably missed something. All I really remember from the film was Superman's behaviour, the utter stupidity of Luthor's plan (I'm going to kill millions and then go into real estate) and that the overall message of the movie seems to be that you can beat any problem with brute force if you just pull a constipated face whilst your lifting the continent you're allergic to into space.:(
According to the plot of that film, Lois Lane lied to her husband, telling him that the kid was his when it wasn't, married him almost immediately after Superman departed and kept the fact from him that he had a child when he did come back. What a fucking cow. Meanwhile Superman abandoned her almost immediately after getting her knocked up for approximately five or six years without actually telling her where he was going or that he'd be away for some time. When he returns to Earth, his first act is to pick up his dogs favourite ball pretending to be about to throw it for him, then hurls the ball off into the stratosphere, leaving the dog looking mournfully after it. Pretty shortly after that, Superman starts trying to pick up where he left off with Lois (and lets also keep in mind that this is a woman he's willing to get pregnant but never tells her he's been stalking her in his day life for years). Lois obliges him, ditching her husband (a loving, supportive, father and husband who not only is rich, successful, but played by fucking James Marsden - I mean what a fucking ungrateful, unappreciative bitch she is). Meanwhile Superman uses his super powers to variously spy on them through their walls, listen to their private conversations and, by the end of the movie, let himself into their house to spend quality time with their kid without the parents knowing. Piece of shit! The only decent person in the film is Lois's husband who despite having no special powers at all, gets in a plane and fucking flies out to sea to rescue her from Lex Luthor whilst Superman know's she's there but is busy flying around the city being a hero. Yeah, points for ethical mathematics, Superman, but shouldn't Lois be more appreciative of the guy who put her first?
None of this would bother me if it weren't for the fact the film is utterly fucking oblivious to the reprehensibility of its main characters. The film takes the attitude of "Superman does it so it must be good" and presumes the audience goes along with them.
Man, I'd prefer my children to watch any amount of Heath Ledger murdering people with pencils but with the film's background message of "people can be good and you don't have to be corrupted by fighting evil", than half an hour of Superman smugly sneaking into people's houses and undermining marriages because he's "the good guy".
Similar...
Spiderman 1: Kind of amusing until the point it turned into Power Rangers half-way through. Willem Defoe was scary.
Spiderman 2: Pretty dumb movie, Aunt May is quite funny.
Spiderman 3: I'm seeing someone that wanted to watch this??? Dancing was only entertaining bit.
Well suspension of disbelief varies a little according to what you're familiar with. To illustrate it vividly, the line in Jurassic Park: "This is UNIX, I know this!", severely traumatised many unsuspecting computer programmers whilst the rest of the audience was unharmed. Similarly, people who knew nothing about boxing could enjoy Million Dollar Baby whilst the rest of us got yanked out of our Suspension of Disbelief every now and then. Climatologists had much more of a difficult time with The Day After Tomorrow than the rest of mankind. Actually scratch that - it probably led to more grant money.;)
Anyway, what I'm saying in a long-winded way, is that whilst the profusion of super-power generating accidents in that film damaged the suspension of disbelief for you due to its violation of scientific norms with which you are familar, most of the rest of us had already had it irrevocably destroyed by that point due to the violation of believable human characters and dialogue. I suppose if you'd never actually experienced human interaction before your disbelief could have survived into some of the superhero creation scenes, though.;)
Anyway, to answer the trollish question posed in TFS: 'No - Spiderman, is not fucking sci-fi'!
Or at least its stated intentions. Nightwatch sounds like a good fit, actually: If you're loyal, then why wouldn't you want to help? The catch of course being loyal to what...
Please read the statement from you that I quoted directly above that. Doesn't really matter as we agree on that small point.
If you're referring to what I said developers are likely to do, that's an observation, not an argument. None of what I'm saying comes down to "what people are used to".
Sophistication doesn't mean complexity. It means presenting all the options desired in the most elegant way.
Well, yes, and sophistication that means taking options away and presenting them in a different way, not adding them.
But what is this different way? If you're not removing options, but merely presenting them in a different way, then we must know what this way is in order to judge whether or not it is superior. It is not sufficient to merely say that presenting options in a better way would be better. We must look at an actual alternative. In the case of a one-button Mac system, you have a separate button that modifies the functionality of the mouse button. The OP observed that this is less desirable than two buttons on a mouse because it requires two hands to operate. I would also suggest that having the behaviour of a button vary according to a separately controlled modifier is more complicated than having buttons that are consistent. That is a small matter however.
Nobody is going to take away your two button mouse, but trying to argue that another system is inherently inferior because it doesn't require one ignores the point above - that sometimes streamlining an interface leads to something clearer, more intuitive and more elegant (IMHO).
You have again modified what I am saying. I am very precise in what I say. I have not said that a system other than a two-button mouse is "inherently" inferior. I say that it is inferior given the range of options desired to be accessed by the mouse. I elsewhere point out that it is inherently less capable and this is a different but relevant point. A two-button mouse can be coded to replicate the behaviour of a single-button mouse exactly. This refers to the physical mouse rather than its implementation. It shows that cost and maintenance differences being negligible, it is better to have a two button mouse and more software options, than otherwise. As regards actual software implementations, I don't argue that that the two-button approach is inherently inferior, but that it simply is. Why is this distinction critical? It is critical because your rebuttals are saying that 'it need not be so'. A rebuttal that would apply only to a statement saying that it 'must be so', e.g. it is inherently inferior. In fact what I am saying is 'it happens to be so' in which case the only rebuttals are either demonstrating that 'it cannot be so' or 'it does not happen to be so'. The first rebuttal is plainly nonsense in this subject. The second rebuttal you have attempted only so far as to say: 'that's not my personal preference'. A rebuttal which does not carry weight unless you were using the preferences of many to illustrate a separate point such as your complexity argument (which you haven't done and cannot because the high proportion of people who commonly use a computer and have not taken significantly proportionately longer learning a two-button system does not support it).
Do you see the important distinction? I dislike analogies on the whole because they introduce imprecision. However, I will represent a parallel argument to make the flaw in your argument clear:
Arguer 1: Bob is a thief.<br/> Arguer 2: People aren't necessarily thieves.
Do you see the different nature of our arguments and why it is incorrect to say that I argue a single-button mouse is "inherently" inferior? I say 'X = 2' and you say 'X could = 2 or it could = 1'. I agree and say that 'X = 2'. Arguing that others things are possible doesn't refute what is and
Just to add even more to your good points, a company like Oracle has contractual protections in place for their most valued developers. Well, I don't actually know this, but I'm sure it must be so. Say Mr. Top Developer is on three month's notice. He announces he's been hired away by IBM. No doubt he or she would immediately be assigned the task of training up some very savvy developers for those remaining three months.
The reason for introducing 5 button mice was to provoke a discussion of what exactly made 2 (as opposed to 1, or 5) a good number of buttons. Unfortunately that didn't happen.
The very first sentence of my post was as follows: "A five button mouse would be too complicated because you'd have to find five, natural seeming categories to divide menus into on all the different applications you use a mouse with." Don't complain you never got a discussion of what made a 2 button mouse (as opposed to 1 or 5) a good number of buttons. I gave you my opinion right at the start: The number of buttons can correlate with the number of categories you can divide desired commands into. With one option, everything gets dumped into one category. With two options, you can find an easyish division into "select / do" and "other". With five buttons, you'd struggle to find five intuitive categories of options. Don't publicly lament not getting "discussion" when you were given it and chose to ignore it. The only arguments in this debate that haven't come down to a personal preference, have been from me.
And speaking of personal preference arguments...
because I see Windows and people who grew up with it as at the heart of this problem
What problem? You have yet to show there is one. I don't personally know anyone who still has difficulty with left and right mouse buttons who commonly uses computers. You've also ignored my point that you're arguing for a more limited interface for the sake of an extreme end of the bell curve that has trouble with it. Is that a good principle to operate on? I think clearly not.
I don't accept that point at all, because many things that lots of people do are wrong.
For the second time you set up the same strawman that I am arguing that a two-button mouse is better because it is what people are used to. Stop doing this. If you keep arguing against things that were never said to make it look like I'm making an argument I haven't, then there is little point in this discussion continuing other than for you to repeatedly demonstrate to everyone that you wont address my actual points. I have never in this thread made an argument that drew support on lots of people doing something.
I had hoped pointing out that a 5 button mouse gives increased complexity at an obvious cost in confusion (how do I use this thing?) would indicate that I think adding 2 buttons similarly costs too much in terms of user confusion.
Yes - I'm sure everyone understood the argument you were trying to make. My initial point that you don't seem to have grasped is that this argument is false. Between over-simple and over-complex, lies a good point for most people. You are implying that because an over-complex end to the spectrum exists, that if A is nearer to it than B, then A is inferior. It is a false argument because it neglects negatives at both ends of the spectrum. Your personal opinion that two buttons costs too much in terms of user confusion is undermined by the demonstrable fact that the vast majority of people that commonly use computers manage with it fine and didn't have a proportionately significantly longer learning time because of it.
Mostly I just use it to point and click and scroll, and feel that should be the default function exposed to the user, otherwise software producers will think of all sorts of whacky, inconsistent and difficult interfaces for their products which rely on two button mice, and sometimes will only expose features in that hidden menu requiring a right click (see Windows).
Your casting of a 'select/do' and 'other' menu choice as "whacky, inconsistent and difficult" mystifies me. Also, talking about features in a hidden menu is downright bizarre. For you to consider right-click menus "hidden" suggests a staggering lack of familiarity with two-button systems. Also, a
Apparently, you didn't read more than the first line, and no, I didn't imply that a mouse with two buttons is 'worse than one because it is nearer to that five', whatever that means. The point of the comparison was to show that a mouse with 2 buttons is not necessarily better than one with 1 button, just as one with 5 buttons is not obviously better than a mouse with 2 buttons.
That's not quite what you said. Someone asked why use two hands for an operation that only takes one one a "proper mouse" and in direct response to that part of their post you said "why stop there? Why not have a five button mouse as standard?" You were plainly extrapolating to absurdity. It's a false argument. The question of whether a five button mouse would be better or worse than others, has no bearing on the question of whether a two-button mouse is better or worse than a one button mouse. You never answered the OP's valid question. You just said 'two-buttons? Well why not just have five buttons?' (argument ad absurdum)
Having 2 buttons is confusing for novice users, and not at all necessary (as Mac OS X shows) - if an OS is properly designed (i.e. not assuming 2 button mice) it can be used with mice with any number of buttons, from 1 to 5.
I don't believe that having two buttons on a mouse is significantly confusing for novice users. It's a long time since I've found people that (a) had a difficulty with this that wasn't soon overcome. Further setting any confusion up against whether it is "necessary" is disingenuous. The question is whether it is useful. And a two-button mouse is demonstrably more capable than a one-button mouse whilst entirely encompassing everything that a one-button mouse can do. A program writer could even set both buttons to do the same thing if they wished though none do because it would seem inelegant and a waste of possible functionality. I don't agree that a two-button mouse is particularly difficult to learn - after all, most of the developed world handles it without thought. I am not in favour of giving up functionality for the sake of an extreme end of the bell curve. You don't think it's an extreme end of the bell curve? Tell me what proportion of the people who commonly use computers that you know, have trouble with two-button mouse and / or found that it added a significant proportion to the overall time it took to learn how to use a computer? I guarantee that if you answer honestly, the proportion will be very small. And your argument in favour of one-button mice is that this small fraction outweighs greater sophistication for everybody else?
This sort of woolly UI by consensus is what Microsoft excels at, and it's exactly why their interfaces leave you swimming in a morass of dialogs, all alike, all with buttons like 'Advanced Properties', and 'Apply' - added complexity does not always equate to sophistication.
The majority of the software using a two-button approach is not written by Microsoft.
a) Just because some people are used to it (i.e. Windows users) doesn't make it a good idea
I think you mean 'e.g.' rather than 'i.e.'. I mostly use KDE desktops, but also sometimes Gnome and very occasionally others. These all use a two-button approach and it's not because Bill Gate's said you must, it's because it was an approach that appealed more. Don't imply that my argument had anything to do with what people are used to or that I ever said what people are used to equates to what is good. Read my posts and you'll find that it's all about pointing out logical flaws in posts that say a one-button mouse is inherently superior (rather than a matter of personal preference) and pointing out that a two-button mouse is, nearly by definition, more capable than a one-button mouse without losing any functionality or gaining in cost. And as you demonstrate yourself when you say how "people are used to it", complexity is clea
you would see that two buttons is far from a "natural" interface.
You put 'natural' in quote marks implying that I said such a thing. I said nothing about a mouse design being natural. Personally, being able to touch type, I find all mice a less preferable alternative to keyboard shortcuts, so please don't cast me in the light of someone who mistakes what I'm used to for what is "natural". First and foremost, I was pointing out the flawed reasoning of the GP who implied that because a mouse with five buttons is bad, two buttons is worse than one because it is nearer to that five. Secondly, I reject your notion that we should start with a simplistic model and that a more sophisticated user can buy in to a two button mouse for a couple of reasons. One is that it forces everyone to support a less sophisticated model by virtue of the lowest common denominator suddenly getting even lower. Resources being what they are, that effectively means abandoning the more sophisticated approach. I pity the poor tech-support guy who now has to ask each caller whether they are using a one- or two-button mouse and reference two sets of interfaces. Wait a minute, aren't you the person complaining about tech support issues? So you either haven't thought this through or you secretly would be happy to see two-button shelved and don't really mean what you say about people going out and buying two-button mice. And anyway, the larger issue is that your standards are terribly low. Pretty much everyone should be able to manage two buttons. If they can't, they're problem is not the mouse, but either mental handicap or psychological fear of computers. Neither of which the existence of such in individuals, is an argument for the rest of society using an interface that is simplistic.
I should point out the extremely obvious logic that you have glossed over. A two-button mouse can support software in exactly the same way as a one-button mouse: just make both buttons do the same thing. The reverse is not true however. Therefore, costs being negligible, we should support the solution that offers us greatest choice and software writers can code as they wish. Although, they will of course code to a two-button standard as this is (a) what most people are used to and (b) offers greater sophistication.
Why stop there, why not have 5 button mice as standard? It's because the concept of right and left click, and the subtle distinctions in use and result between them, make for a confusing user interface, which Apple chose to eschew in favour of something simpler.
A five button mouse would be too complicated because you'd have to find five, natural seeming categories to divide menus into on all the different applications you use a mouse with. But waying "why not have a five button mouse" is no argument. Between too complex and too simple, there lies the right balance. Now you may consider a two button mouse to make "a confusing interface" but clearly much of the world deals with it without problem and finds the limitations of a single-button mouse annoying. Trying to argue we're wrong by saying two-buttons is closer to five buttons than one button and is therefore worse, is no more logical than saying being in a warm room is closer to burning to death than being in a cold room, therefore a warm room is worse than a cold room.
Personally, I'm waiting to see what the Microsoft Courier is going to be like. Two screens in a book format with a stylus. If it's light enough and cheap enough, I think it'll probably make the Apple tablet look like an oversize, unwieldy beast indeed.
In many countries the majority of the population wants certain topics censored
You don't need to censor that which people voluntarily reject or have no interest in. You censor that which people might be interested in seeing but which doesn't suit your purposes.
Quotes like this guy's "we should respect the laws of local countries" I don't agree with. Laws != Ethics. The correct extension of the principle of respecting other's values is "we should respect the wishes of the people of local countries". The people are not synonymous with their government and the more a government censors information from the people, the less synonymous with that government they are likely to be and the less reason we have to follow the dictates of a government that claims to represent them.
If information is uncensored, then people can choose to look at it / read it / think about it or not. If information is censored then they have only one option. Given that being able to choose the better option out of two functionally subsumes only having one of those choices without cost, then the logically better option is not to censor things.
Same when I went to Belgium. Get off the Eurostar in Brussels, quick and efficient and welcoming. Coming back to the UK, lines of miserable people being funneled past a grim little checkpoint. The contrast was quite stark.
And what about the poor people in the USA who then suffer from reduced visitors, whether academic, tourist or friends and family? When the US government's laws affect other nations, the US pays the price as well. The people of the US are victims of this too.
According to the article, he can't sell the wing-mirror in the USA because leglislation bans curved wing-mirrors, so he's going to have to try selling them in the EU instead. Why is there such legislation, anyone?
And thanks for the abuse and the label of "denialist". The GP said it didn't matter whether catastrophic climate change was the result of mankind or not, that we still had to deal with it. I illustrated how that was flawed by pointing out that if we got a cause of global warming wrong, then our efforts to fix it could well be wrong. I thought it an effective way to point out an oversight in his logic. He is right that it doesn't matter whether a catastrophic climate change were man-made or not to whether we need to react to it, but his phrasing excluded it mattering to how we react as well.
As to your demonising people with a different scientific opinion to yourself as "denialists", I don't think that's helpful. You yourself help foster the same factionalism which makes it hard to have reasonable arguments when you do this. There is a world of difference between someone who says "this is not so" and "I don't know if it is so or not", but when you leap in and call anyone expressing skepticism a "denialist" and call them a fucking jerk (or in this case that you perceive to be expressing skepticism), you lump everyone together and create factions, shutting down debate.
Absolutely. But if global warming is not caused by mankind then our research into stopping the supposed man-based causes of it is not best directed. If we've ploughed all our efforts into reducing our Carbon Dioxide output and then we learn that it's due to some solar cycle and the effect of CO2 is minimal, then that's a huge waste of time when we could have been doing something else. Also, if we have misjudged the causes of global warming, how can we predict what is actually going to happen and plan for it?
I don't know why you think that a section of society that is statistically smarter and better off than the average should have trouble attracting partners (of either gender). If you want my hypothesis as to why engineers might be more inclined to terrorism (*if* this is the case), it's because they're seldom satisfied with leaving things the way they are just because its the status quo. The attitude of an engineer - don't accept things without question, see how things can be changed - lends itself as well to politics as it does to technology.
My point on wealth above was pointing out that if the population shrinks- at some point, a bank or a family is going to be left holding property that was worth several lifetimes of income and now is worth virtually nothing.
Ah, not that's a well-put point. Speaking as someone that has paid a great deal to landlords over the course of their life, I'm not sure I'm entirely averse to property becoming much less valued in real terms. This effect bears some serious thinking about for its effect on society though. I don't have your magic wand to reduce population for you, btw, but I do have the next best thing. Everywhere education and professional opportunity for women has increased, the birth rate has dropped. Every European, Asian, North or South American country every time - it has dropped and dropped by the populations own volition without coercion of any kind. Distribute the wealth more evenly, plough money into education, you'll get your population reduction and without any of the popular horror scenarios.
Back to the devaluation of people's wealth, though. It could really hit hard those that have invested in property to ensure their income. Not only directly through lack of demand, but because to keep an area habitable - the infrastructure, etc. - takes money. There are whole estates in the English midlands that are pretty much abandoned. If you had a lot of property in an area that grew abandoned, then it would be a major adjustment for you. But on the whole, I'm not over-concerned with this as an outcome. Effectively what we're seeing is a devaluation due to super-abundance. And how can that be a bad thing at a societal level? I'd be more concerned with the reaction of owning classes trying to bring political influence to bear to find ways of preserving their position at the top of a society, seeking for more ways to create a division into rich and poor. Still, that's something that can be dealt with. The banks... like you say that's more of an issue. They have a fundamental adjustment to make. I'd need to think about how that transition could be managed. It does seem to me though that all the economic problems of a population decrease. if uniform globally, lie principally at the doors of the rich. The rest of the population appears to benefit.
(By the way, you appear to have written your post in haiku).
The science of Pandora is very well thought out. You want to know how the planet can keep cool? Well we don't know how much heat it receives from its suns. If it were less than Earth, then you might as well ask how it keeps warm? But anyway, keep in mind that being in orbit around a gas giant in a binary system, it is likely to endure long periods of night, not just an eight-hour stretch in every day. The whole place may have a three week darkness, for example, moon-wide. That would explain the bioluminesence everywhere as well.;)
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Okay. So Lois had her memory wiped by Superman after sleeping with him. That lets her off the hook a bit, but makes Superman even more of a nasty piece of work. But like you say, there's no reference to this in the film so people like me who don't know the previous films (and I'd imagine the kids that are a primary audience for this film mostly get included in that) have no way to know this. Still, even allowing this, she hooked up with James Marsden quickly enough that she thought it was his child. So they surely must have been seeing each other during the events of when she slept with Superman. Okay - I suppose it's possible she wasn't. She gets her memory wiped, goes out meets this guy, they have sex and 'whoops - I'm pregnant'. Okay, she gets a pass on that (and bonus points for James Marsden for doing the honourable and marrying his one-night stand). Her behaviour during the movie isn't exactly virtuous. But still, thanks for clearing that up.
I'm taking your word for this, mind you. I'm not being distrustful. But I remember Luthor waving the green rock at the kid and seeing the kid flinch and him asking whose kid this is. That happens after the child has displayed his powers, does it? The first thing I remember of that is him throwing a piano at someone which I thought was later? I've probably missed something. All I really remember from the film was Superman's behaviour, the utter stupidity of Luthor's plan (I'm going to kill millions and then go into real estate) and that the overall message of the movie seems to be that you can beat any problem with brute force if you just pull a constipated face whilst your lifting the continent you're allergic to into space.
According to the plot of that film, Lois Lane lied to her husband, telling him that the kid was his when it wasn't, married him almost immediately after Superman departed and kept the fact from him that he had a child when he did come back. What a fucking cow. Meanwhile Superman abandoned her almost immediately after getting her knocked up for approximately five or six years without actually telling her where he was going or that he'd be away for some time. When he returns to Earth, his first act is to pick up his dogs favourite ball pretending to be about to throw it for him, then hurls the ball off into the stratosphere, leaving the dog looking mournfully after it. Pretty shortly after that, Superman starts trying to pick up where he left off with Lois (and lets also keep in mind that this is a woman he's willing to get pregnant but never tells her he's been stalking her in his day life for years). Lois obliges him, ditching her husband (a loving, supportive, father and husband who not only is rich, successful, but played by fucking James Marsden - I mean what a fucking ungrateful, unappreciative bitch she is). Meanwhile Superman uses his super powers to variously spy on them through their walls, listen to their private conversations and, by the end of the movie, let himself into their house to spend quality time with their kid without the parents knowing. Piece of shit! The only decent person in the film is Lois's husband who despite having no special powers at all, gets in a plane and fucking flies out to sea to rescue her from Lex Luthor whilst Superman know's she's there but is busy flying around the city being a hero. Yeah, points for ethical mathematics, Superman, but shouldn't Lois be more appreciative of the guy who put her first?
None of this would bother me if it weren't for the fact the film is utterly fucking oblivious to the reprehensibility of its main characters. The film takes the attitude of "Superman does it so it must be good" and presumes the audience goes along with them.
Man, I'd prefer my children to watch any amount of Heath Ledger murdering people with pencils but with the film's background message of "people can be good and you don't have to be corrupted by fighting evil", than half an hour of Superman smugly sneaking into people's houses and undermining marriages because he's "the good guy".
Similar...
Spiderman 1: Kind of amusing until the point it turned into Power Rangers half-way through. Willem Defoe was scary.
Spiderman 2: Pretty dumb movie, Aunt May is quite funny.
Spiderman 3: I'm seeing someone that wanted to watch this??? Dancing was only entertaining bit.
Well suspension of disbelief varies a little according to what you're familiar with. To illustrate it vividly, the line in Jurassic Park: "This is UNIX, I know this!", severely traumatised many unsuspecting computer programmers whilst the rest of the audience was unharmed. Similarly, people who knew nothing about boxing could enjoy Million Dollar Baby whilst the rest of us got yanked out of our Suspension of Disbelief every now and then. Climatologists had much more of a difficult time with The Day After Tomorrow than the rest of mankind. Actually scratch that - it probably led to more grant money.
Anyway, what I'm saying in a long-winded way, is that whilst the profusion of super-power generating accidents in that film damaged the suspension of disbelief for you due to its violation of scientific norms with which you are familar, most of the rest of us had already had it irrevocably destroyed by that point due to the violation of believable human characters and dialogue. I suppose if you'd never actually experienced human interaction before your disbelief could have survived into some of the superhero creation scenes, though.
Anyway, to answer the trollish question posed in TFS: 'No - Spiderman, is not fucking sci-fi'!
The people doing most to fight DRM are probably those paying for non-DRM'd content online.
Or at least its stated intentions. Nightwatch sounds like a good fit, actually: If you're loyal, then why wouldn't you want to help? The catch of course being loyal to what...
If you're referring to what I said developers are likely to do, that's an observation, not an argument. None of what I'm saying comes down to "what people are used to".
But what is this different way? If you're not removing options, but merely presenting them in a different way, then we must know what this way is in order to judge whether or not it is superior. It is not sufficient to merely say that presenting options in a better way would be better. We must look at an actual alternative. In the case of a one-button Mac system, you have a separate button that modifies the functionality of the mouse button. The OP observed that this is less desirable than two buttons on a mouse because it requires two hands to operate. I would also suggest that having the behaviour of a button vary according to a separately controlled modifier is more complicated than having buttons that are consistent. That is a small matter however.
You have again modified what I am saying. I am very precise in what I say. I have not said that a system other than a two-button mouse is "inherently" inferior. I say that it is inferior given the range of options desired to be accessed by the mouse. I elsewhere point out that it is inherently less capable and this is a different but relevant point. A two-button mouse can be coded to replicate the behaviour of a single-button mouse exactly. This refers to the physical mouse rather than its implementation. It shows that cost and maintenance differences being negligible, it is better to have a two button mouse and more software options, than otherwise. As regards actual software implementations, I don't argue that that the two-button approach is inherently inferior, but that it simply is. Why is this distinction critical? It is critical because your rebuttals are saying that 'it need not be so'. A rebuttal that would apply only to a statement saying that it 'must be so', e.g. it is inherently inferior. In fact what I am saying is 'it happens to be so' in which case the only rebuttals are either demonstrating that 'it cannot be so' or 'it does not happen to be so'. The first rebuttal is plainly nonsense in this subject. The second rebuttal you have attempted only so far as to say: 'that's not my personal preference'. A rebuttal which does not carry weight unless you were using the preferences of many to illustrate a separate point such as your complexity argument (which you haven't done and cannot because the high proportion of people who commonly use a computer and have not taken significantly proportionately longer learning a two-button system does not support it).
Do you see the important distinction? I dislike analogies on the whole because they introduce imprecision. However, I will represent a parallel argument to make the flaw in your argument clear:
Do you see the different nature of our arguments and why it is incorrect to say that I argue a single-button mouse is "inherently" inferior? I say 'X = 2' and you say 'X could = 2 or it could = 1'. I agree and say that 'X = 2'. Arguing that others things are possible doesn't refute what is and
Just to add even more to your good points, a company like Oracle has contractual protections in place for their most valued developers. Well, I don't actually know this, but I'm sure it must be so. Say Mr. Top Developer is on three month's notice. He announces he's been hired away by IBM. No doubt he or she would immediately be assigned the task of training up some very savvy developers for those remaining three months.
The very first sentence of my post was as follows: "A five button mouse would be too complicated because you'd have to find five, natural seeming categories to divide menus into on all the different applications you use a mouse with." Don't complain you never got a discussion of what made a 2 button mouse (as opposed to 1 or 5) a good number of buttons. I gave you my opinion right at the start: The number of buttons can correlate with the number of categories you can divide desired commands into. With one option, everything gets dumped into one category. With two options, you can find an easyish division into "select / do" and "other". With five buttons, you'd struggle to find five intuitive categories of options. Don't publicly lament not getting "discussion" when you were given it and chose to ignore it. The only arguments in this debate that haven't come down to a personal preference, have been from me.
And speaking of personal preference arguments...
What problem? You have yet to show there is one. I don't personally know anyone who still has difficulty with left and right mouse buttons who commonly uses computers. You've also ignored my point that you're arguing for a more limited interface for the sake of an extreme end of the bell curve that has trouble with it. Is that a good principle to operate on? I think clearly not.
For the second time you set up the same strawman that I am arguing that a two-button mouse is better because it is what people are used to. Stop doing this. If you keep arguing against things that were never said to make it look like I'm making an argument I haven't, then there is little point in this discussion continuing other than for you to repeatedly demonstrate to everyone that you wont address my actual points. I have never in this thread made an argument that drew support on lots of people doing something.
Yes - I'm sure everyone understood the argument you were trying to make. My initial point that you don't seem to have grasped is that this argument is false. Between over-simple and over-complex, lies a good point for most people. You are implying that because an over-complex end to the spectrum exists, that if A is nearer to it than B, then A is inferior. It is a false argument because it neglects negatives at both ends of the spectrum. Your personal opinion that two buttons costs too much in terms of user confusion is undermined by the demonstrable fact that the vast majority of people that commonly use computers manage with it fine and didn't have a proportionately significantly longer learning time because of it.
Your casting of a 'select/do' and 'other' menu choice as "whacky, inconsistent and difficult" mystifies me. Also, talking about features in a hidden menu is downright bizarre. For you to consider right-click menus "hidden" suggests a staggering lack of familiarity with two-button systems. Also, a
That's not quite what you said. Someone asked why use two hands for an operation that only takes one one a "proper mouse" and in direct response to that part of their post you said "why stop there? Why not have a five button mouse as standard?" You were plainly extrapolating to absurdity. It's a false argument. The question of whether a five button mouse would be better or worse than others, has no bearing on the question of whether a two-button mouse is better or worse than a one button mouse. You never answered the OP's valid question. You just said 'two-buttons? Well why not just have five buttons?' (argument ad absurdum)
I don't believe that having two buttons on a mouse is significantly confusing for novice users. It's a long time since I've found people that (a) had a difficulty with this that wasn't soon overcome. Further setting any confusion up against whether it is "necessary" is disingenuous. The question is whether it is useful. And a two-button mouse is demonstrably more capable than a one-button mouse whilst entirely encompassing everything that a one-button mouse can do. A program writer could even set both buttons to do the same thing if they wished though none do because it would seem inelegant and a waste of possible functionality. I don't agree that a two-button mouse is particularly difficult to learn - after all, most of the developed world handles it without thought. I am not in favour of giving up functionality for the sake of an extreme end of the bell curve. You don't think it's an extreme end of the bell curve? Tell me what proportion of the people who commonly use computers that you know, have trouble with two-button mouse and / or found that it added a significant proportion to the overall time it took to learn how to use a computer? I guarantee that if you answer honestly, the proportion will be very small. And your argument in favour of one-button mice is that this small fraction outweighs greater sophistication for everybody else?
The majority of the software using a two-button approach is not written by Microsoft.
I think you mean 'e.g.' rather than 'i.e.'. I mostly use KDE desktops, but also sometimes Gnome and very occasionally others. These all use a two-button approach and it's not because Bill Gate's said you must, it's because it was an approach that appealed more. Don't imply that my argument had anything to do with what people are used to or that I ever said what people are used to equates to what is good. Read my posts and you'll find that it's all about pointing out logical flaws in posts that say a one-button mouse is inherently superior (rather than a matter of personal preference) and pointing out that a two-button mouse is, nearly by definition, more capable than a one-button mouse without losing any functionality or gaining in cost. And as you demonstrate yourself when you say how "people are used to it", complexity is clea
You put 'natural' in quote marks implying that I said such a thing. I said nothing about a mouse design being natural. Personally, being able to touch type, I find all mice a less preferable alternative to keyboard shortcuts, so please don't cast me in the light of someone who mistakes what I'm used to for what is "natural". First and foremost, I was pointing out the flawed reasoning of the GP who implied that because a mouse with five buttons is bad, two buttons is worse than one because it is nearer to that five. Secondly, I reject your notion that we should start with a simplistic model and that a more sophisticated user can buy in to a two button mouse for a couple of reasons. One is that it forces everyone to support a less sophisticated model by virtue of the lowest common denominator suddenly getting even lower. Resources being what they are, that effectively means abandoning the more sophisticated approach. I pity the poor tech-support guy who now has to ask each caller whether they are using a one- or two-button mouse and reference two sets of interfaces. Wait a minute, aren't you the person complaining about tech support issues? So you either haven't thought this through or you secretly would be happy to see two-button shelved and don't really mean what you say about people going out and buying two-button mice. And anyway, the larger issue is that your standards are terribly low. Pretty much everyone should be able to manage two buttons. If they can't, they're problem is not the mouse, but either mental handicap or psychological fear of computers. Neither of which the existence of such in individuals, is an argument for the rest of society using an interface that is simplistic.
I should point out the extremely obvious logic that you have glossed over. A two-button mouse can support software in exactly the same way as a one-button mouse: just make both buttons do the same thing. The reverse is not true however. Therefore, costs being negligible, we should support the solution that offers us greatest choice and software writers can code as they wish. Although, they will of course code to a two-button standard as this is (a) what most people are used to and (b) offers greater sophistication.
Personally, I want a mouse suited to my needs, not designed to be less confusing for the sort of people you describe.
A five button mouse would be too complicated because you'd have to find five, natural seeming categories to divide menus into on all the different applications you use a mouse with. But waying "why not have a five button mouse" is no argument. Between too complex and too simple, there lies the right balance. Now you may consider a two button mouse to make "a confusing interface" but clearly much of the world deals with it without problem and finds the limitations of a single-button mouse annoying. Trying to argue we're wrong by saying two-buttons is closer to five buttons than one button and is therefore worse, is no more logical than saying being in a warm room is closer to burning to death than being in a cold room, therefore a warm room is worse than a cold room.
Personally, I'm waiting to see what the Microsoft Courier is going to be like. Two screens in a book format with a stylus. If it's light enough and cheap enough, I think it'll probably make the Apple tablet look like an oversize, unwieldy beast indeed.
Uh, it's not made by Apple, you know.
Yeah, because China has never had a revolution. And Indonesia - why revolutions are unheard of!
You don't need to censor that which people voluntarily reject or have no interest in. You censor that which people might be interested in seeing but which doesn't suit your purposes.
Quotes like this guy's "we should respect the laws of local countries" I don't agree with. Laws != Ethics. The correct extension of the principle of respecting other's values is "we should respect the wishes of the people of local countries". The people are not synonymous with their government and the more a government censors information from the people, the less synonymous with that government they are likely to be and the less reason we have to follow the dictates of a government that claims to represent them.
If information is uncensored, then people can choose to look at it / read it / think about it or not. If information is censored then they have only one option. Given that being able to choose the better option out of two functionally subsumes only having one of those choices without cost, then the logically better option is not to censor things.
Same when I went to Belgium. Get off the Eurostar in Brussels, quick and efficient and welcoming. Coming back to the UK, lines of miserable people being funneled past a grim little checkpoint. The contrast was quite stark.
And what about the poor people in the USA who then suffer from reduced visitors, whether academic, tourist or friends and family? When the US government's laws affect other nations, the US pays the price as well. The people of the US are victims of this too.
Well the Fifth Element was love. I guess by the 115th we're down to, I don't know, petulance or something.
According to the article, he can't sell the wing-mirror in the USA because leglislation bans curved wing-mirrors, so he's going to have to try selling them in the EU instead. Why is there such legislation, anyone?
And thanks for the abuse and the label of "denialist". The GP said it didn't matter whether catastrophic climate change was the result of mankind or not, that we still had to deal with it. I illustrated how that was flawed by pointing out that if we got a cause of global warming wrong, then our efforts to fix it could well be wrong. I thought it an effective way to point out an oversight in his logic. He is right that it doesn't matter whether a catastrophic climate change were man-made or not to whether we need to react to it, but his phrasing excluded it mattering to how we react as well.
As to your demonising people with a different scientific opinion to yourself as "denialists", I don't think that's helpful. You yourself help foster the same factionalism which makes it hard to have reasonable arguments when you do this. There is a world of difference between someone who says "this is not so" and "I don't know if it is so or not", but when you leap in and call anyone expressing skepticism a "denialist" and call them a fucking jerk (or in this case that you perceive to be expressing skepticism), you lump everyone together and create factions, shutting down debate.
Regards,
H.
Absolutely. But if global warming is not caused by mankind then our research into stopping the supposed man-based causes of it is not best directed. If we've ploughed all our efforts into reducing our Carbon Dioxide output and then we learn that it's due to some solar cycle and the effect of CO2 is minimal, then that's a huge waste of time when we could have been doing something else. Also, if we have misjudged the causes of global warming, how can we predict what is actually going to happen and plan for it?
I don't know why you think that a section of society that is statistically smarter and better off than the average should have trouble attracting partners (of either gender). If you want my hypothesis as to why engineers might be more inclined to terrorism (*if* this is the case), it's because they're seldom satisfied with leaving things the way they are just because its the status quo. The attitude of an engineer - don't accept things without question, see how things can be changed - lends itself as well to politics as it does to technology.
Ah, not that's a well-put point. Speaking as someone that has paid a great deal to landlords over the course of their life, I'm not sure I'm entirely averse to property becoming much less valued in real terms. This effect bears some serious thinking about for its effect on society though. I don't have your magic wand to reduce population for you, btw, but I do have the next best thing. Everywhere education and professional opportunity for women has increased, the birth rate has dropped. Every European, Asian, North or South American country every time - it has dropped and dropped by the populations own volition without coercion of any kind. Distribute the wealth more evenly, plough money into education, you'll get your population reduction and without any of the popular horror scenarios.
Back to the devaluation of people's wealth, though. It could really hit hard those that have invested in property to ensure their income. Not only directly through lack of demand, but because to keep an area habitable - the infrastructure, etc. - takes money. There are whole estates in the English midlands that are pretty much abandoned. If you had a lot of property in an area that grew abandoned, then it would be a major adjustment for you. But on the whole, I'm not over-concerned with this as an outcome. Effectively what we're seeing is a devaluation due to super-abundance. And how can that be a bad thing at a societal level? I'd be more concerned with the reaction of owning classes trying to bring political influence to bear to find ways of preserving their position at the top of a society, seeking for more ways to create a division into rich and poor. Still, that's something that can be dealt with. The banks... like you say that's more of an issue. They have a fundamental adjustment to make. I'd need to think about how that transition could be managed. It does seem to me though that all the economic problems of a population decrease. if uniform globally, lie principally at the doors of the rich. The rest of the population appears to benefit.
(By the way, you appear to have written your post in haiku).
The science of Pandora is very well thought out. You want to know how the planet can keep cool? Well we don't know how much heat it receives from its suns. If it were less than Earth, then you might as well ask how it keeps warm? But anyway, keep in mind that being in orbit around a gas giant in a binary system, it is likely to endure long periods of night, not just an eight-hour stretch in every day. The whole place may have a three week darkness, for example, moon-wide. That would explain the bioluminesence everywhere as well.