Sorry to go off topic, but this is a great opportunity to talk about why the fuck we even have a 'desktop'. It's always been a stupid design, and its roots are in the idea that applications need to be variable size windows that can overlap. It's an idea that was designed by an engineer - in other words, progmatically makes sense, but pragmatically does not.
In the last few years, we've seen tabbed interfaces take off because they're slightly less sucky than the traditional MDI paradigm. But tabbed interfaces still suck for some purposes (drag and drop), and aren't even implemented on the OS level but at the app level. What we really need is to kill the whole window paradigm and start from scratch. Of course, I don't know what would be more intuitive, but there has to be some way to present applications in an orderly fashion where you can't 'lose' windows, overlap windows, or be limited in any way. And believe me, I have my gripes about this on Windows, Mac, and Linux. It happens everywhere.
I have a feeling that the solution will grow out of the mobile market, and, indeed, much has already been accomplished there. After all, it's the big screens of the PC market that fucked up multitasking in the first place. Multitasking shouldn't be as difficult and annoying as it is, and the 'desktop' wallpaper we never see is the central part of that problem./rant
As a former Windows Mobile developer, I am terrified. I now work on the iPhone, but my company is looking at the Android as a target platform. From what I've heard, Android seems like Windows Mobile all over again. And Windows Mobile was a disaster.
The only thing that's ever made me feel the same way was when I watched my first David Lynch movie expecting it to have a plot and make sense.
Hence, I dub Lost the longest David Lynch film ever.
There was a point to it, but the point was not to tell a story. The point was to keep us entertained and interested, to rattle our brains a bit. Interesting things appeared out of nowhere, and disappeared when they no longer served their purpose.
Had I known this from the beginning, I would have had different expectations and I would feel differently about it. But since I expected things to actually make sense in the end, I am upset and angry.
In other words, Obama starts debates on important topics he knows he doesn't know everything about. He even admitted so in said speech.
The fact that people are now debating the purpose of information technology in our lives is a good thing.
But misinterpreting the spark that started the debate is what annoys me. Steering the discussion toward what a Luddite he is, or how ridiculous the idea is, completely misses the point.
Sometimes people talk out loud and air their ideas just so they can refine them and make them better. Being someone who does that often, I find that to be a good thing. I think it's good to challenge your own ideas and to not commit fully until you understand the nuances better.
Aren't they pretty much the same thing? Talk is cheap, and when you're smart sometimes it's hard to word things perfectly for the obsessive-compulsive crowd who doesn't understand your hand waving and generalizations.
Just like people take sound bytes of Obama and say "OMG HE'S A COMMUNIST!" this is no different. Unless policy changes arise from this, I don't really care. What he's saying is generally intelligent and has some merits, but nitpicking about specific points is just asinine. When he's making a graduation speech, he doesn't need to dot his I's and cross his T's just because some people can't look past the words and get to the sentiment.
And to the poster below who thinks I loved Bush: no. That's a false conjecture, though I gave him his benefits of the doubt as well. I voted for neither Bush nor Obama (yet).
This is why I sympathize with Obama. I know exactly what it's like to have people over-parse and over-analyze your words, when they'd just understand if they had some common sense. For fuck sake, he's making a flowery commencement speech, not policy.
Many people accidentally leave their doors unlocked, garage doors open, etc. In fact, you can easily open anyone's garage at any time. Or break their large bay windows.
But you don't see people being robbed all the time due to these facts.
Locked doors are little more than security theater for our own minds. If someone *really* wants to rob you, they will.
I would suggest that Canine evolution is still on-going with dogs getting brighter and brighter possibly due to our genes being slowly transferred to them
lol really? Domesticated dogs smarter than wolves?
The Catholic Church is the last (Christian) religious institution to have the "sacred dogma" marketability. It's a very large bullet point on their sales presentation slide. "We have been around the longest. We are full of mystical, intriguing quirks that lend to our legitimacy."
Once they start giving in to modern concepts (and giving up dogmas), they begin to lose that essence and have less to compete against other Christian sects with.
It's also a great source of pride, however depraved that may seem.
So, they need to change slowly. They don't want to seem like some willy nilly religion that makes arbitrary rules. THEIR rules are from God.
If they were to change in the midst of this pedophile scandal, it would seem as a reaction to the scandal and not edict from Heaven. That would lose credibility among followers, priests (who've had to be celibate all this time), and those potential followers looking in.
In other words, the writing's on the wall, but the situation is delicate.
It's because printers are crap. Nobody wants to own something that *never* works the few times of year you need it. Fuck that.
If they want people to print stuff, they should make it 'cool' to print stuff. Like if Apple came out with a printer that 'just worked'. Yeah, maybe then I would print things.
Or go big and make it dual as a high performance file server. I bought a standard ATX board that had 4 gigabit ports already on it (why anyone would practically need a consumer board like this is beyond me).
Slashdot Mirror
Do any of those plugins work for the majority of Flash content on 64-bit Linux?
Apple's already working on it!
Sorry to go off topic, but this is a great opportunity to talk about why the fuck we even have a 'desktop'. It's always been a stupid design, and its roots are in the idea that applications need to be variable size windows that can overlap. It's an idea that was designed by an engineer - in other words, progmatically makes sense, but pragmatically does not.
In the last few years, we've seen tabbed interfaces take off because they're slightly less sucky than the traditional MDI paradigm. But tabbed interfaces still suck for some purposes (drag and drop), and aren't even implemented on the OS level but at the app level. What we really need is to kill the whole window paradigm and start from scratch. Of course, I don't know what would be more intuitive, but there has to be some way to present applications in an orderly fashion where you can't 'lose' windows, overlap windows, or be limited in any way. And believe me, I have my gripes about this on Windows, Mac, and Linux. It happens everywhere.
I have a feeling that the solution will grow out of the mobile market, and, indeed, much has already been accomplished there. After all, it's the big screens of the PC market that fucked up multitasking in the first place. Multitasking shouldn't be as difficult and annoying as it is, and the 'desktop' wallpaper we never see is the central part of that problem. /rant
WARNING: Link does not contain game. Completely useless.
This game could be fun if the controls weren't completely obnoxious.
Wow, you really know how to pick something invaluable that Flash brings to the internet.
Windows Mobile ran in a VM too (.net)
It was still a disaster. Screen size differences are always a disaster, no matter what.
Most of the whining about screen sizes comes from developers who want to use photoshop slicedowns as GUIs instead of using Android's GUI.
Developers don't give a shit about that. It's the management that does. Most companies care about making flashy products.
As a former Windows Mobile developer, I am terrified. I now work on the iPhone, but my company is looking at the Android as a target platform. From what I've heard, Android seems like Windows Mobile all over again. And Windows Mobile was a disaster.
along with the disappearance of a major political party interested in smaller, less pervasive government.
What, the Tea Party doesn't count? /ducks
Yeah, I think most people would have been faffing off at work regardless of Pac-Man. Plenty of good Flash games!
The only thing that's ever made me feel the same way was when I watched my first David Lynch movie expecting it to have a plot and make sense.
Hence, I dub Lost the longest David Lynch film ever.
There was a point to it, but the point was not to tell a story. The point was to keep us entertained and interested, to rattle our brains a bit. Interesting things appeared out of nowhere, and disappeared when they no longer served their purpose.
Had I known this from the beginning, I would have had different expectations and I would feel differently about it. But since I expected things to actually make sense in the end, I am upset and angry.
He directed Hot Chip's new video "I Feel Better". It's awesome. YouTube it.
In other words, Obama starts debates on important topics he knows he doesn't know everything about. He even admitted so in said speech.
The fact that people are now debating the purpose of information technology in our lives is a good thing.
But misinterpreting the spark that started the debate is what annoys me. Steering the discussion toward what a Luddite he is, or how ridiculous the idea is, completely misses the point.
Sometimes people talk out loud and air their ideas just so they can refine them and make them better. Being someone who does that often, I find that to be a good thing. I think it's good to challenge your own ideas and to not commit fully until you understand the nuances better.
Aren't they pretty much the same thing? Talk is cheap, and when you're smart sometimes it's hard to word things perfectly for the obsessive-compulsive crowd who doesn't understand your hand waving and generalizations.
Just like people take sound bytes of Obama and say "OMG HE'S A COMMUNIST!" this is no different. Unless policy changes arise from this, I don't really care. What he's saying is generally intelligent and has some merits, but nitpicking about specific points is just asinine. When he's making a graduation speech, he doesn't need to dot his I's and cross his T's just because some people can't look past the words and get to the sentiment.
And to the poster below who thinks I loved Bush: no. That's a false conjecture, though I gave him his benefits of the doubt as well. I voted for neither Bush nor Obama (yet).
This is why I sympathize with Obama. I know exactly what it's like to have people over-parse and over-analyze your words, when they'd just understand if they had some common sense. For fuck sake, he's making a flowery commencement speech, not policy.
Thanks to you and Wikipedia, I have now seen yellow-blue (via the link to Impossible colors). Crazy!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossible_colors
Why are we assuming that they're making fun of how small it is? They could have been making fun of how big it is!
Many people accidentally leave their doors unlocked, garage doors open, etc. In fact, you can easily open anyone's garage at any time. Or break their large bay windows.
But you don't see people being robbed all the time due to these facts.
Locked doors are little more than security theater for our own minds. If someone *really* wants to rob you, they will.
Interesting! Thanks for the links.
I would suggest that Canine evolution is still on-going with dogs getting brighter and brighter possibly due to our genes being slowly transferred to them
lol really? Domesticated dogs smarter than wolves?
The Catholic Church is the last (Christian) religious institution to have the "sacred dogma" marketability. It's a very large bullet point on their sales presentation slide. "We have been around the longest. We are full of mystical, intriguing quirks that lend to our legitimacy."
Once they start giving in to modern concepts (and giving up dogmas), they begin to lose that essence and have less to compete against other Christian sects with.
It's also a great source of pride, however depraved that may seem.
So, they need to change slowly. They don't want to seem like some willy nilly religion that makes arbitrary rules. THEIR rules are from God.
If they were to change in the midst of this pedophile scandal, it would seem as a reaction to the scandal and not edict from Heaven. That would lose credibility among followers, priests (who've had to be celibate all this time), and those potential followers looking in.
In other words, the writing's on the wall, but the situation is delicate.
Maybe they're just trying to make amends with astronomy after persecuting it so many years ago. "Hey, we have something in common now!"
It's because printers are crap. Nobody wants to own something that *never* works the few times of year you need it. Fuck that.
If they want people to print stuff, they should make it 'cool' to print stuff. Like if Apple came out with a printer that 'just worked'. Yeah, maybe then I would print things.
True dat. I had an old Pentium II as a router for years.
Or go big and make it dual as a high performance file server. I bought a standard ATX board that had 4 gigabit ports already on it (why anyone would practically need a consumer board like this is beyond me).