I run linux for web servers, PCs to work with the PC software we sell, and Macs to use day in and day out. Macs have the highly agreeable nature of making everything available if you need it, and everything just works all the time, plus it is a comfortable, easy to use, and good looking environment.
I'm very familiar with all three environments from both the user and the programming level. Linux is the most obscure, Windows is the least consistent, and the Mac is the best of all worlds, with linux-like power under the hood and the best UI of any OS out there, as well as great application software.
My favorite machine is my Mac laptop, a 17-inch dual-core machine, hands-down. It does have one shortcoming, and that is directly related to the discussion here: The trackpad is insufficient to my needs because of the one-button design. I have to use a mouse for some software; there are some operations you just can't do with one button, no matter how much you might like to. In their attempt to simplify the physical UI, they made the machine more difficult to use.
Ah. Well, that can happen when you unreasonably attack someone clear out of the blue. Next time, perhaps you'll do a little less name calling, skip putting words in other people's mouths, refrain from hyperbole, and focus on the product instead of the marketing. I'm reasonably sure that is likely to get you a more refined response. From your first post:
" UGLIEST PRODUCT WEBSITE I've seen in the last 5 years"
"crappy website"
"crappy UI "
"horrible ugly images"
"add insult to injury"
From your second:
"Do what the hell you want."
From your third:
"pedantic asshole"
"outdated piece of crap" (your words, not mine and not my implication)
See what I mean?
I enjoy your justification that it runs on Macintosh. All I have to do is spend $2000 to replace my perfectly good PowerMac G5 and spend another $100 on Parallels (or whatever it costs) and it runs on Macintosh! Wow I can really see the cost savings from Photoshop coming my way now! (When did everyone on the Internet become a pedantic asshole? I think it was obvious when I said it doesn't run on Macintosh that I meant it wasn't Mac-native.)
Actually, the cost of our software plus Parallels plus a dual-core Mac Mini is about the same as Photoshop; do a little Ebay shopping and it'd be a lot less. You'd have a considerably faster machine and more power than Photoshop offers. So it's not quite as black and white as you see it in terms of total costs. And of course, the new Mac is a great deal faster than your current machine (believe me — I have both PPC macs and Intel macs and there is just no comparison at all... the Intel machines are very fast.) But I do agree, if you stay with your PPC hardware, you can't use WinImages effectively. I made a mistaken assumption that you'd have a machine made in the last couple of years, mea culpa. Nothing wrong with your machine at all, nor do I consider it outdated. I've not ditched my PPC machines either, nor do I intend to anytime soon.
Something else. You talk about "cost savings"; but while the software itself certainly isn't expensive, that's not the primary benefit. The primary benefit is that it can enable you to do a lot of things you can't do with Photoshop at all. For graphics professionals, neither the cost of the software nor the issue of requiring an Intel machine is much of an issue. We've already priced it pretty low, and other than specifically making a Mac version (which we are considering), we've taken the time to ensure it works as well as possible in the most reasonable environment the Mac offers for this kind of software.
We could, as you suggest, engage in Adobe-style marketing, all happy white pages and fluff descriptions, move to a place where we have huge Internet pipes and direct access to classic marketing expertise. But then we wouldn't be selling a program for fifty bucks. We'd be selling for the many hundreds of dollars that Photoshop does. Many of our customers are the "little guys", and we'd be locking them out. So it isn't entirely black and white as to what we can, or should, do. It seems to me (and I am the boss, so that's the key thing) that the most important thing to focus on is what the software can do, and I am content with that.
You compare your product to Photoshop in your sig, that's all I was doing.
No, you really were not. You were looking at our website and complaining about the appearance. You never brought up or criticized a single feature of the software or inquired about a feature of the software. The website is of course not the program, but so far as it describes the program, you didn't go there. Again, should you have any questions, regardless of intent to buy, I'm perf
I suppose it is fruitless to ask the Dutch if they would please come kill all US analog television broadcasts ASAP, and the programmers who have been creating what is being broadcast...
Just a heads-up-- hire a decent website developer!
And a heads-up for you: We make tools, not art. If you want to make art, then what you should be looking for is the best tools you can find. If you think you're going to do that by complaining that some toolmaker isn't an artist, you're failing to understand the difference in mindset between the two. There is no more requirement that we be artists than a master sword maker need be a fighter. Our job is simply to make the best tools we can, and that in fact is what we do. I can back that up; and such is my only concern.
Also — since you brought it up — WinImages runs fine on OSX via Parallels under XP, 98, 2000, and NT, and is fast, efficient, and comparably powerful in that environment. I use it that way all the time, since there's nothing on the Mac that can possibly replace it in terms of all-in-one functionality. But of course, it doesn't have as spiffy looking buttons, so that wouldn't be of interest to you. Right?
Female circumcision is the removal of the clitoral hood. The word you are looking for is clitoridectomy
Thanks very much. I had only heard it called "circumcision"; clearly, you are correct as to the technical term. However, after doing a little research this afternoon, I think I'll go with the plain English "female genital mutilation" so as to both be clear, and to indicate what side I am on at the same time. Because I do have an agenda, and that would be most decidedly against.
If you only used your Marantz 3 times a year, you probably wouldn't be so happy to have all the controls in your face.
No, you have it exactly backwards. Having all the controls in my face allows me to locate the one I want by simply reading. Ah, Bass, there we go. Having a feature buried in some obscure menu almost ensures that I will not find it at all. I can go completely down multiple wrong paths and never even find it. That's what learning *nix was like, too. Hidden, or so obscure that it might as well have been hidden.
The Kia example is the same. Having a feature means you can use it. Not having it, or burying it, means you can't. I'd rather have it. Someone gets into a car, drives for a while, back gets sore... they'd have been better of with the Kia, which has numerous features that adjust that seat to compensate. Back windshield dirty? Wipers, defrost, washer. Better to have, than not. Need to plug something in? Multiple 12v outlets up front, midbody, and in back. Better to have, than not. Cruise control - better to have than not. Gone shopping? Kia's got shopping bag hangers front, middle and rear. Need to work? Passenger seat turns into a desk. Better to have, than not. Lights on the mirror, on the sunshades, on the ceiling... airbags in the side pillars... lots of storage... 4wd... traction control... dual trip-meters... headlight management, door-lock management... coffee holders (6 of them)... internal and external tie-downs... flat cargo-bed or seats in seconds... super crash ratings, cheaper than the US competition, and gets better milage. Excellent environmental controls. Nice peppy V6. Power everything, including auto-down on the driver's window, handy for tolls and the like. Flipping outrageous warranty.
Do I have to remember this all to benefit? Not at all. All that functionality is "right there." Would I (or anyone else) be better off without these features? Absolutely not. And, which of these features do I "not need" in order to "improve" my experience; or, which of them makes the car too difficult to drive for a new user? I drove it off the lot without any trouble. Sure, it took a few days to find all the nifty features, but so what? They're all top level, easy to use, extremely well thought out, none require require genius or imagination or menu navigation to use.
Minimalist features gets you minimalist functionality. Unless you get off on smooth, featureless curved cases, I see no benefit whatsoever. Menus get you delayed, hidden functionality, loss of orientation, decreased usability although they allow extensive buried functionality. Control-per-feature gets you strong functionality and maximum speed of access, plus allows map-is-territory human capabilities to help you use your stuff. As far as I'm concerned, the only time you have a reason to use hidden functionality is when the available space has become full.
I'm sorry, you must have mistaken me for someone who has accepted mythology as history. There is no evidence whatsoever for your god of the Christians, nor any other god. I have absolutely no belief in any god or gods; nor any reason to give such beliefs by others any credence. In my experience, such beliefs are uniformly based upon fear, ignorance, gullibility, or some combination of those three things. Your post is a good example, bandying about fundamentalist tripe like "Adam and Eve" as if it were fact. Purest ignorance, almost certainly caused by gullibility, though perhaps it was fear.
My only objection to this idea is that it gives religion a respect it has not earned from me, so I don't like it very much. Still, names aren't really the point, legal issues are, and so I'd go for this.
Oh, not to worry; the 13th amendment ensures that slavery remains alive and well by specifically allowing it to be applied to the lowest class of citizens. And I'm sure that like ex-post facto, the commerce clause, the first and second amendments, that the meaning of the 13th will be, ah, "adjusted" as they feel appropriate to circumstances. Slavery never died. It simply became the property of the government.
Nobody's trying to say that marriage should be anything other than an explicit and voluntary contract between two people.
No. I say that limiting marriage to two people is utterly arbitrary and both ethically and morally wrong. My position is that it should be two or more intelligently consenting individuals. This whole "two people" thing is a completely artificial barrier with no sensible reason to exist whatsoever. You can't make a decent argument for it; the most one can say is it is a habit impressed upon us by religion and law; but as we know, religion and law are not definitive of "good"; I call your attention to witch-burnings, female circumcision (a euphemism for mutilation of the clitoris into non-functionality) and the crusades; prohibition, blue laws and the drug war, just for starters.
If marriage is whatever 2 people say it is, then how will the word mean anything?
I think it is very clear what it should mean. A declaration of partnership based upon serious, long term commitment by individuals who are both capable of understanding that precise commitment up front (the classic definition of intelligent, informed consent) and able to represent that fact in a legal and comprehensible manner. Such declaration may be public, or not, and it should -- not does, but should -- carry with it such legal obligations as the participants have agreed upon, and no others. Socially, it's dead obvious: "This is my partner, please treat them as you would me." Simple, easy to deal with, no worries.
When people say "we're married", that's what I think of. As to the specifics, these only matter when legal issues come up; and that is why paperwork stating the terms is such a good idea in today's world. Otherwise, some idiot could tell you you could not have a say in the treatment of the love(s) of your life if they were in the hospital, or that you could not have a say in the schooling of your offspring. Marriage, in the end, is a state that is intended to benefit the individuals involved. Not the rest of us as onlookers. If they wanted our opinion, surely we would have been invited to the ceremony, or made signatory on the paperwork.
The problem is that in the legal sphere, words have very specific meanings. They have to. Otherwise, it isn't possible for two people to communicate honestly
Yes, however what you are arguing for here isn't "specific" meaning, it is canned meaning. I would argue that every human partnership involves different stakes, different foundations, different preconceptions, different commitment, and therefore just as when forming a specific type of business, you'll want a specific type of agreement tailored to your union. What those specifics are matter primarily to the members of the union, and are otherwise not much of anyone else's business until such time as a question of parenting or hospital visitation or the like comes up; at that time, you whip out your paperwork, point to the appropriate clause, and you're done.
Communications about what a union means would be vastly enhanced by a thorough hammering out of what one is agreeing to, it seems to me. Opportunities for improvement abound: No wife would find she had unwittingly become a dishwasher or drudge; no husband would find that his wife's last day of interest in sex was the day before they were married; no child would find itself stripped of a parent. Services to assist in hammering out such agreements would become widely available; sounds optimum to me.
If you want to have civil unions, fine. But don't be dishonest about it. It isn't marriage.
Oh, I'm being perfectly honest. And honestly, what you want for anyone's marriage but your own and your offspring's is completely irrelevant to me. What I say is marriage for me, is marriage. Period. You don't have even a fraction of a say. Honestly.:) When it comes to you telling me what marriage is for you, then I'll listen, and I'll respect that, all the more so if you can make it clear. Marriage isn't religious to or for me, because religion doesn't intercept with any part of my life. Consequently, I don't give a flying hoot what any religion has to say about my marriage, or lack thereof, any more than I would if an astrologer tried to tell me I should live in some particular fashion. Superstition isn't a solid enough foundation for any fraction of a relationship I enter into, I can assure you. If it is for you, that's something else entirely, and I encourage you to have it your way. And I promise not to bother you about it; if that's the way you and your partner(s) roll, by all means, have at it.
Another example - suppose my daughter's personal definition of marriage
If your interface's ability to function correctly depends upon the individual user's semantics, then you've failed it.
Obviously, this isn't Google's "interface", though, despite your thinking. Google's got the submit link buried a few pages in. You just have to find it amongst the rest of Google's stuff.
Wow, I love it when slashdot users throw in blatant plugs for their own software under the guise of an unbiased comparison...
Not half as much as I love it when you try to make that look like it isn't accurate without being able to point to a single fact. My post was spot-on in facts; yours is just whining. If you think you have a legitimate complaint, by all means, lay out the details. Otherwise, the fact that the subject matter is my life's work isn't something that makes me unwilling to post about it. This is my area of expertise. I made no bones whatsoever about it being my product, I was neither subtle nor deceitful.
I suppose you'd prefer I made a comparison between software I was not familiar with. Buy a clue, fan boy.
Hillary would totally lose that one in a landslide. Mark my words - she might get the democratic nomination, but I don't see how she could possibly win the general election.
Want to know how she can win? Just look at the raw percentage of the US population who are uninsured and cannot afford health care (16%). She offers to hand that over, she'll have the vote of every one of those people. She'll have mine, too -- I'm self-insured, but I feel for those people. So all she has to do is pick up the remainder of the 51% she needs, about 35%, on other issues. For her, I really don't see that as a problem. Especially after the mess Bush has made out of the republican platform, the constitution, America's world reputation, and the war on personal choice.
Now, actually getting that campaign promise done... now, that is a war. Unlikely to succeed, too much money is invested in the established system. So it's all in how she couches her promises.
Marriage is a religious institution and the state has no business being involved.
Marriage was around long before any of the major religions of today (Islam, Christianity) and served as a political bond joining property and fortune well before Christ, Mohammed, or Zeus. Religion may want to co-opt marriage (and I can certainly understand why, it's a control mechanism similar to, and related to, sexual control) but history doesn't support the claim that marriage is religious.
As for the government's interest, this is relatively natural: When you join in property, medical and fiscal responsibility, residence, and income, only a perfect government would be able to keep its hot little hands out of the pot. And hoo boy, is our government not perfect!
Religion's no better. As soon as sexuality and joining come into it, next thing you know there is some person trying to tell you exactly how you should be managing your affairs. One wife, not two. Opposite sex partners only. This age disparity, and no more. This color, and not that. This religion, and not another. History supports a much wider set of joinings, and for very good reason -- they're perfectly natural.
So to your idea of religion having all there is to say about marriage, I say, "take off, eh?" Marriage should be what the partners (2...n) say it is, and the rest of us should respect that. It should not be subject to Christian or Muslim or even ancient Greek sensibilities. When people want to join together and seek their fortune and lives together the rest of us have only one job: Get the heck out of the way.
...and that overpopulated cohort known as the Boomers are all on the high side of 40.
I'm on that list; 52 and very boomy. But I still prefer my Marantz 2325 in the bedroom to my Denon surround system in the living room because the 2325 provides a full front panel with control of everything on a knob right there in my face instead of hidden "for my convenience." Is the Marantz more formidable to look at? You bet it is, there are thirty adjustable controls, three sets of jacks, a slew of status indicators, a dial readout and two meters on the panel. The Denon has two knobs and a display; even if you open the sub-bay, most of the functionality isn't directly accessible.
Likewise, my Kia Sportage is full of controls and conveniences, and I simply love that vehicle. I suspect that when that salesman does his due diligence and learns what the mirror button does, he'll be well rewarded. There are no "trivial" things in my sportage; everything has been useful, convenient, and a real relief from the dumbed-down controls of my previous vehicles.
Finally, the software I prefer is powerful, full of features, and doesn't hide them under layers and layers of menus, and furthermore, that's the design approach I take with software I write. The primary reason why is the countless times I've seen customers go "I didn't know that was even there!" with all kinds of software. As far as I am concerned, when an operation is selected, as many of the options as possible, preferably all of them, should be right there for your selection. I know it makes it a lot easier for me to use software, and I know it addresses those folks who wander through software instead of studying it (and those are few and far between.)
Google's got the right idea for its search clients. But then again, come in there without having been there for a while and try to find where to submit URLs as a content provider... that's pretty minimalist and obscured under a few layers of stuff, there's no particular hint on the home page. Reminds me of my Denon. Sounds great, and you can't argue that the volume control and source selection are right there, which is what most people use most. Can you EQ the room or select what kind of inputs a source has? Sure you can. Big time. Better not have arthritis, though... you've got some menu navigation chops to exercise, and like Google, it's not all that obvious. In fact, frankly, its a pain in the butt.
I'm "that guy" who will be more inclined to buy something if the controls are in my face. The more knobs, buttons, meters, displays, and UI elements it has that are connected directly to particular functionality, the happier I am. I don't want my bass control buried under layers of menus, and I don't want my software controls buried, either. So I dunno about that boomer argument. We grew up with complex interfaces. Someone took that idea away from us right about the time the programmable VCR came out, and ever since then, there's been a whole class of people who "can't run stuff." Coincidence? I think not. Just bad design, started by some clown who thought that minimal == better. It doesn't. It just == minimal.
You're forgetting that the first task most computer users will want to perform is likely to require a good amount of the resources of the computer - the graphics card, graphical windows, the pointing device, the file system, possibly network access.
I didn't forget any of that. I mentioned them specifically. Go back, read again. Note the specific mentions of those items.
if you expect one second boot time from scratch, you don't understand hardware or operating systems well enough.
I've been designing computer systems and subsystems since the 1970s; I have written small and medium size specialized real time operating systems both for commercial and military use, designed numerous dedicated controllers on both the hardware and software sides, CPU subsystems, graphics subsystems (vector, raster and hybrid) compilers, assemblers, a couple of decent languages, real time I/O, gaming machines, graphics and audio drivers, codecs, and one of my best friends was responsible for most of QNX's display card drivers, about which we had many discussions. In short, don't you worry about what I understand about computers. My point was, and is, that current designs don't go this way but there is no technical reason a design can't go this way.
As for price, realistic software pricing is based on units distributed. There is no way to predict pricing until you know the ultimate market penetration. Even planning pricing moderately well requires that you make a decent guess. As for complexity, you can't mention Windows in the same post with "user's don't want the complexity" and retain any credibility. Windows is a train wreck of complexity, non-orthogonal control, unreliability and incompatibility complemented by a stupendously badly implemented system registry and various DRM diseases. If it isn't clamoring for a reboot, it wants you to know your firewall is out of compliance, your computer "may" (ha!) not be protected against various threats, and that by the way, you're running as administrator, and consequently, so is your spyware infection. Now, M. User, press the "start" button to "stop" your computer. Best not to get me any further down the road about Windows complexity and the problems subsequent to same.
If users actually wanted non-complex system management, they'd all be running OSX (in my estimation, the only consumer-friendly OS available today, specifically excluding other *nix and windows, both of which I am intimately familiar with, to my general grief.) The fact is, users buy what marketing convinces them to buy, and then they suffer because most of them don't know any better and the remainder are locked into the choice by applications they have come to depend upon (or games they love, whatever) even if they do know better.
Certainly, the kernel paging subsystems are needed, which requires analyzing memory and hard drive space
None of that analysis is required unless the configuration has changed, which is not usually (hardly ever, in fact) the case.
So once you look at the details, you've pretty much described what Windows does during boot.
No. I didn't. Once the drive is spinning, you can simply and quickly load a (relatively) large block of memory from one set area of the HD (think larger boot record) that contains a last-known-working configuration for all those things in one (relatively speaking) long disk operation. This stuff can check the basic resources (mouse, display card, memory, kb, hd, cpu) to see if they're the same, and if they are (and 99.99999% of the time, they will be) just smack them in the registers according to the last known configuration and take off. Boot time could be a fraction of a second with a modern HD, CPU, display and a few gigs of memory. So clearly, I'm not talking about what Windows does. I'm talking about doing something else entirely, which thing would be boot quickly to a minimalist working system that complies with the user's last set of choices as far as it goes, let the user begin to interact, and bring up everything else in the background without chewing up large chunks of CPU time or locking out the user unless they require something that isn't yet available. I already described what to do in that case in my first post.
I can think of something -- some network drivers require large blocks of contiguous physical memory which simply may not be available after a virtual memory computer has been running for some time.
Doesn't have to be an issue. Ask yourself how long it really has to take to reserve a hunk of memory from a system that is coming up in the most initial boot phase and is known not to yet have handed off any tasks? A few machine instructions: A call, lift a pointer, push, LEA past the end of the segment, bounds check, put the pointer back, pop, return. Maybe two or three times that if you want to track memory use in a really fancy way. Earmark the memory for the driver, which can pick it up later. Simple, gets the job done. In other words, if memory really needs to be reserved, then do that at startup. That's not the same kind of imposition on the user's time as loading a driver and testing hardware and banging up and down the PCI bus and trying to get a response from (what may be the wrong) DNS server and so on. I'm just saying that if you need to reserve memory on boot for some reason, that poses no obstacles whatsoever in terms of time or technical implementation. And for those cases when there is no network, the memory can be released by the network driver at the user's request -- or not. Be nice if the user could actually use all the resources they paid for the way they want to, eh?
Why aren't ALL Linux drivers implemented as modules?
Because linux is an old-school design as per my initial post?
The problem is old-school linear thinking we've inherited.
There is no technical reason that a computer could not wake up, verify the keyboard, memory, hd, mouse and display are the same (in a few microseconds, probably) and be up and responding very well to the user, while (new concept, brace yourselves) the computer carefully brings up other hardware subsystems and makes them available as they become functional. You could be in a word processor, graphics editor, all manner of things that don't require more hardware until you do something like print or attempt to access the network; if those subsystems are not ready when you try to use them, the design would allow for [establishing hardware, wait or cancel] and there you have it.
There is no problem whatsoever with plug and play concepts coexisting with fast usability other than current design shortcomings end users have been forced to live with. The computer is running as soon as the HD is spinning, memory sized, and the video card is on and the KB and mouse work. Just because current operating systems don't let you begin working at that time isn't a reflection on plug and play as a concept, it's a reflection of linear thinking that descends from old single tasking systems like early DOS.
The idea that a 2...3 GHz 32 or 64 bit CPU cannot bring itself to decent usability in under a second is one that is silly right on the face of it except in that common systems are using old school thinking and layering more and more crap on top of that thinking. There is not a thing in the world that says drivers can't be loaded on demand, or after usability from boot, or separately. Nothing.
Honestly, I stopped using Yahoo when the original beautiful user-supplied index became a pay-to-link operation. Soon, instead of cool little places you'd never heard of that had something unique to offer, it was nothing but an index of larger commercial sites. Many interesting sites I still had in my bookmarks that I knew were still active disappeared from the index, and Yahoo failed to answer even the plainest on inquiries about the index. Anything they did after that I ignored. And of course, then Google pretty much obsoleted all the other search engines (which Yahoo was not, it was a tree-structured index), and then finally the open directory project came along and replaced what Yahoo used to be good for.
So... if bits were paper, Yahoo is what would wrap my fish.
One of the worst things that has come out of the hysteria about 'child predators' is that people who chose not to fight a minor offense years ago suddenly find that the punishment has been 'enhanced' ex post facto. And the last time I checked, that was unconstitutional.
First, let me say that I agree with your sentiment completely; however, the reasoning (sophist, in my view) put forward by the USSC was that "registration" isn't punishment, it is a "legitimate state function" where the state "has an interest", and therefore, not being punishment it is no problem to apply it to someone after sentencing.
The very idea that registration is "not punishment" strikes me as the very worst kind of operating under false colors. The consequences of registration itself are so far-reaching, so severe, and so unavoidable by the registrant that I am left drop-jawed by the "argument" that it isn't punishment. And that is without the later additions; the national registry, the limits on where and how registered people can live, the inclusion in credit reports and job evaluations, and now, apparently, their online activities. I find the entire thing to be amazing on the one hand, and terrifying on the other. For I take to heart that whole bit about "first they came for..."
Someone is wandering around slashdot with a signature that says something along the lines of "the root passwords to the constitution are terrorism and child pornography"; I think that goes right to the heart of the matter.
Another issue that is relevant is that this is not the only area in which the interpretation of the constitution is absurdly out of whack; it is almost the style of the USSC to interpret it in a wacky, "you must be out of your bloody mind" mode. The interstate commerce clause has also been subject to some amazingly circuitous (to be kind) reasoning in both its intent and application.
For the most part (with the notable exception of the 13th amendment's direct authorization of slavery) the constitution is an amazingly prescient and rock-solid foundation for a government. It is really too bad that it isn't used that way.
For crying out loud... "sex offender" is not a synonym for "fucking children."
It means everything from peeing on a bush outside to having consensual sex with a consenting partner of reasonable age who decided later to use it against you to having taken completely innocent photos of your own kid. And it does include people who prey on children, I'll grant you, but the point is the brush is now too broad because legislators are idiots; if they go with the email thing you'll have learned nothing useful except how to jitter and freak out about a bunch of people who are likely to be absolutely zero threat to you and any children, anywhere.
Control your legislators, people. Come on. And think!
...looks like a square 265 miles on a side in the American southwest would do it.
The American southwest, good grief, no! Just replace Hoboken. Have you ever been to Hoboken? Digging that place out would be like excising a cancer, you'd vastly improve the New Jersey air quality and water table, and covering more of the clear spaces out west just ruins more of what free space that remains.
I'm sure the Hoboken population would make at least mid-quality soylent green...
Slashdot Mirror
I run linux for web servers, PCs to work with the PC software we sell, and Macs to use day in and day out. Macs have the highly agreeable nature of making everything available if you need it, and everything just works all the time, plus it is a comfortable, easy to use, and good looking environment.
I'm very familiar with all three environments from both the user and the programming level. Linux is the most obscure, Windows is the least consistent, and the Mac is the best of all worlds, with linux-like power under the hood and the best UI of any OS out there, as well as great application software.
My favorite machine is my Mac laptop, a 17-inch dual-core machine, hands-down. It does have one shortcoming, and that is directly related to the discussion here: The trackpad is insufficient to my needs because of the one-button design. I have to use a mouse for some software; there are some operations you just can't do with one button, no matter how much you might like to. In their attempt to simplify the physical UI, they made the machine more difficult to use.
Ah. Well, that can happen when you unreasonably attack someone clear out of the blue. Next time, perhaps you'll do a little less name calling, skip putting words in other people's mouths, refrain from hyperbole, and focus on the product instead of the marketing. I'm reasonably sure that is likely to get you a more refined response. From your first post:
From your second:
From your third:
See what I mean?
Actually, the cost of our software plus Parallels plus a dual-core Mac Mini is about the same as Photoshop; do a little Ebay shopping and it'd be a lot less. You'd have a considerably faster machine and more power than Photoshop offers. So it's not quite as black and white as you see it in terms of total costs. And of course, the new Mac is a great deal faster than your current machine (believe me — I have both PPC macs and Intel macs and there is just no comparison at all... the Intel machines are very fast.) But I do agree, if you stay with your PPC hardware, you can't use WinImages effectively. I made a mistaken assumption that you'd have a machine made in the last couple of years, mea culpa. Nothing wrong with your machine at all, nor do I consider it outdated. I've not ditched my PPC machines either, nor do I intend to anytime soon.
Something else. You talk about "cost savings"; but while the software itself certainly isn't expensive, that's not the primary benefit. The primary benefit is that it can enable you to do a lot of things you can't do with Photoshop at all. For graphics professionals, neither the cost of the software nor the issue of requiring an Intel machine is much of an issue. We've already priced it pretty low, and other than specifically making a Mac version (which we are considering), we've taken the time to ensure it works as well as possible in the most reasonable environment the Mac offers for this kind of software.
We could, as you suggest, engage in Adobe-style marketing, all happy white pages and fluff descriptions, move to a place where we have huge Internet pipes and direct access to classic marketing expertise. But then we wouldn't be selling a program for fifty bucks. We'd be selling for the many hundreds of dollars that Photoshop does. Many of our customers are the "little guys", and we'd be locking them out. So it isn't entirely black and white as to what we can, or should, do. It seems to me (and I am the boss, so that's the key thing) that the most important thing to focus on is what the software can do, and I am content with that.
No, you really were not. You were looking at our website and complaining about the appearance. You never brought up or criticized a single feature of the software or inquired about a feature of the software. The website is of course not the program, but so far as it describes the program, you didn't go there. Again, should you have any questions, regardless of intent to buy, I'm perf
I suppose it is fruitless to ask the Dutch if they would please come kill all US analog television broadcasts ASAP, and the programmers who have been creating what is being broadcast...
And a heads-up for you: We make tools, not art. If you want to make art, then what you should be looking for is the best tools you can find. If you think you're going to do that by complaining that some toolmaker isn't an artist, you're failing to understand the difference in mindset between the two. There is no more requirement that we be artists than a master sword maker need be a fighter. Our job is simply to make the best tools we can, and that in fact is what we do. I can back that up; and such is my only concern.
Also — since you brought it up — WinImages runs fine on OSX via Parallels under XP, 98, 2000, and NT, and is fast, efficient, and comparably powerful in that environment. I use it that way all the time, since there's nothing on the Mac that can possibly replace it in terms of all-in-one functionality. But of course, it doesn't have as spiffy looking buttons, so that wouldn't be of interest to you. Right?
Thanks very much. I had only heard it called "circumcision"; clearly, you are correct as to the technical term. However, after doing a little research this afternoon, I think I'll go with the plain English "female genital mutilation" so as to both be clear, and to indicate what side I am on at the same time. Because I do have an agenda, and that would be most decidedly against.
No, you have it exactly backwards. Having all the controls in my face allows me to locate the one I want by simply reading. Ah, Bass, there we go. Having a feature buried in some obscure menu almost ensures that I will not find it at all. I can go completely down multiple wrong paths and never even find it. That's what learning *nix was like, too. Hidden, or so obscure that it might as well have been hidden.
The Kia example is the same. Having a feature means you can use it. Not having it, or burying it, means you can't. I'd rather have it. Someone gets into a car, drives for a while, back gets sore... they'd have been better of with the Kia, which has numerous features that adjust that seat to compensate. Back windshield dirty? Wipers, defrost, washer. Better to have, than not. Need to plug something in? Multiple 12v outlets up front, midbody, and in back. Better to have, than not. Cruise control - better to have than not. Gone shopping? Kia's got shopping bag hangers front, middle and rear. Need to work? Passenger seat turns into a desk. Better to have, than not. Lights on the mirror, on the sunshades, on the ceiling... airbags in the side pillars... lots of storage... 4wd... traction control... dual trip-meters... headlight management, door-lock management... coffee holders (6 of them)... internal and external tie-downs... flat cargo-bed or seats in seconds... super crash ratings, cheaper than the US competition, and gets better milage. Excellent environmental controls. Nice peppy V6. Power everything, including auto-down on the driver's window, handy for tolls and the like. Flipping outrageous warranty.
Do I have to remember this all to benefit? Not at all. All that functionality is "right there." Would I (or anyone else) be better off without these features? Absolutely not. And, which of these features do I "not need" in order to "improve" my experience; or, which of them makes the car too difficult to drive for a new user? I drove it off the lot without any trouble. Sure, it took a few days to find all the nifty features, but so what? They're all top level, easy to use, extremely well thought out, none require require genius or imagination or menu navigation to use.
Minimalist features gets you minimalist functionality. Unless you get off on smooth, featureless curved cases, I see no benefit whatsoever. Menus get you delayed, hidden functionality, loss of orientation, decreased usability although they allow extensive buried functionality. Control-per-feature gets you strong functionality and maximum speed of access, plus allows map-is-territory human capabilities to help you use your stuff. As far as I'm concerned, the only time you have a reason to use hidden functionality is when the available space has become full.
I'm sorry, you must have mistaken me for someone who has accepted mythology as history. There is no evidence whatsoever for your god of the Christians, nor any other god. I have absolutely no belief in any god or gods; nor any reason to give such beliefs by others any credence. In my experience, such beliefs are uniformly based upon fear, ignorance, gullibility, or some combination of those three things. Your post is a good example, bandying about fundamentalist tripe like "Adam and Eve" as if it were fact. Purest ignorance, almost certainly caused by gullibility, though perhaps it was fear.
My only objection to this idea is that it gives religion a respect it has not earned from me, so I don't like it very much. Still, names aren't really the point, legal issues are, and so I'd go for this.
Oh, not to worry; the 13th amendment ensures that slavery remains alive and well by specifically allowing it to be applied to the lowest class of citizens. And I'm sure that like ex-post facto, the commerce clause, the first and second amendments, that the meaning of the 13th will be, ah, "adjusted" as they feel appropriate to circumstances. Slavery never died. It simply became the property of the government.
No. I say that limiting marriage to two people is utterly arbitrary and both ethically and morally wrong. My position is that it should be two or more intelligently consenting individuals. This whole "two people" thing is a completely artificial barrier with no sensible reason to exist whatsoever. You can't make a decent argument for it; the most one can say is it is a habit impressed upon us by religion and law; but as we know, religion and law are not definitive of "good"; I call your attention to witch-burnings, female circumcision (a euphemism for mutilation of the clitoris into non-functionality) and the crusades; prohibition, blue laws and the drug war, just for starters.
I think it is very clear what it should mean. A declaration of partnership based upon serious, long term commitment by individuals who are both capable of understanding that precise commitment up front (the classic definition of intelligent, informed consent) and able to represent that fact in a legal and comprehensible manner. Such declaration may be public, or not, and it should -- not does, but should -- carry with it such legal obligations as the participants have agreed upon, and no others. Socially, it's dead obvious: "This is my partner, please treat them as you would me." Simple, easy to deal with, no worries.
When people say "we're married", that's what I think of. As to the specifics, these only matter when legal issues come up; and that is why paperwork stating the terms is such a good idea in today's world. Otherwise, some idiot could tell you you could not have a say in the treatment of the love(s) of your life if they were in the hospital, or that you could not have a say in the schooling of your offspring. Marriage, in the end, is a state that is intended to benefit the individuals involved. Not the rest of us as onlookers. If they wanted our opinion, surely we would have been invited to the ceremony, or made signatory on the paperwork.
Yes, however what you are arguing for here isn't "specific" meaning, it is canned meaning. I would argue that every human partnership involves different stakes, different foundations, different preconceptions, different commitment, and therefore just as when forming a specific type of business, you'll want a specific type of agreement tailored to your union. What those specifics are matter primarily to the members of the union, and are otherwise not much of anyone else's business until such time as a question of parenting or hospital visitation or the like comes up; at that time, you whip out your paperwork, point to the appropriate clause, and you're done.
Communications about what a union means would be vastly enhanced by a thorough hammering out of what one is agreeing to, it seems to me. Opportunities for improvement abound: No wife would find she had unwittingly become a dishwasher or drudge; no husband would find that his wife's last day of interest in sex was the day before they were married; no child would find itself stripped of a parent. Services to assist in hammering out such agreements would become widely available; sounds optimum to me.
Oh, I'm being perfectly honest. And honestly, what you want for anyone's marriage but your own and your offspring's is completely irrelevant to me. What I say is marriage for me, is marriage. Period. You don't have even a fraction of a say. Honestly. :) When it comes to you telling me what marriage is for you, then I'll listen, and I'll respect that, all the more so if you can make it clear. Marriage isn't religious to or for me, because religion doesn't intercept with any part of my life. Consequently, I don't give a flying hoot what any religion has to say about my marriage, or lack thereof, any more than I would if an astrologer tried to tell me I should live in some particular fashion. Superstition isn't a solid enough foundation for any fraction of a relationship I enter into, I can assure you. If it is for you, that's something else entirely, and I encourage you to have it your way. And I promise not to bother you about it; if that's the way you and your partner(s) roll, by all means, have at it.
Not dependably so:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q= I+want+to+resubmit+my+site&btnG=Search = help+me+submit&btnG=Search = where+do+I+submit+a+link%3F&btnG=Search
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q
If your interface's ability to function correctly depends upon the individual user's semantics, then you've failed it.
Obviously, this isn't Google's "interface", though, despite your thinking. Google's got the submit link buried a few pages in. You just have to find it amongst the rest of Google's stuff.
Not half as much as I love it when you try to make that look like it isn't accurate without being able to point to a single fact. My post was spot-on in facts; yours is just whining. If you think you have a legitimate complaint, by all means, lay out the details. Otherwise, the fact that the subject matter is my life's work isn't something that makes me unwilling to post about it. This is my area of expertise. I made no bones whatsoever about it being my product, I was neither subtle nor deceitful.
I suppose you'd prefer I made a comparison between software I was not familiar with. Buy a clue, fan boy.
Want to know how she can win? Just look at the raw percentage of the US population who are uninsured and cannot afford health care (16%). She offers to hand that over, she'll have the vote of every one of those people. She'll have mine, too -- I'm self-insured, but I feel for those people. So all she has to do is pick up the remainder of the 51% she needs, about 35%, on other issues. For her, I really don't see that as a problem. Especially after the mess Bush has made out of the republican platform, the constitution, America's world reputation, and the war on personal choice.
Now, actually getting that campaign promise done... now, that is a war. Unlikely to succeed, too much money is invested in the established system. So it's all in how she couches her promises.
Marriage was around long before any of the major religions of today (Islam, Christianity) and served as a political bond joining property and fortune well before Christ, Mohammed, or Zeus. Religion may want to co-opt marriage (and I can certainly understand why, it's a control mechanism similar to, and related to, sexual control) but history doesn't support the claim that marriage is religious.
As for the government's interest, this is relatively natural: When you join in property, medical and fiscal responsibility, residence, and income, only a perfect government would be able to keep its hot little hands out of the pot. And hoo boy, is our government not perfect!
Religion's no better. As soon as sexuality and joining come into it, next thing you know there is some person trying to tell you exactly how you should be managing your affairs. One wife, not two. Opposite sex partners only. This age disparity, and no more. This color, and not that. This religion, and not another. History supports a much wider set of joinings, and for very good reason -- they're perfectly natural.
So to your idea of religion having all there is to say about marriage, I say, "take off, eh?" Marriage should be what the partners (2...n) say it is, and the rest of us should respect that. It should not be subject to Christian or Muslim or even ancient Greek sensibilities. When people want to join together and seek their fortune and lives together the rest of us have only one job: Get the heck out of the way.
I'm on that list; 52 and very boomy. But I still prefer my Marantz 2325 in the bedroom to my Denon surround system in the living room because the 2325 provides a full front panel with control of everything on a knob right there in my face instead of hidden "for my convenience." Is the Marantz more formidable to look at? You bet it is, there are thirty adjustable controls, three sets of jacks, a slew of status indicators, a dial readout and two meters on the panel. The Denon has two knobs and a display; even if you open the sub-bay, most of the functionality isn't directly accessible.
Likewise, my Kia Sportage is full of controls and conveniences, and I simply love that vehicle. I suspect that when that salesman does his due diligence and learns what the mirror button does, he'll be well rewarded. There are no "trivial" things in my sportage; everything has been useful, convenient, and a real relief from the dumbed-down controls of my previous vehicles.
Finally, the software I prefer is powerful, full of features, and doesn't hide them under layers and layers of menus, and furthermore, that's the design approach I take with software I write. The primary reason why is the countless times I've seen customers go "I didn't know that was even there!" with all kinds of software. As far as I am concerned, when an operation is selected, as many of the options as possible, preferably all of them, should be right there for your selection. I know it makes it a lot easier for me to use software, and I know it addresses those folks who wander through software instead of studying it (and those are few and far between.)
Google's got the right idea for its search clients. But then again, come in there without having been there for a while and try to find where to submit URLs as a content provider... that's pretty minimalist and obscured under a few layers of stuff, there's no particular hint on the home page. Reminds me of my Denon. Sounds great, and you can't argue that the volume control and source selection are right there, which is what most people use most. Can you EQ the room or select what kind of inputs a source has? Sure you can. Big time. Better not have arthritis, though... you've got some menu navigation chops to exercise, and like Google, it's not all that obvious. In fact, frankly, its a pain in the butt.
I'm "that guy" who will be more inclined to buy something if the controls are in my face. The more knobs, buttons, meters, displays, and UI elements it has that are connected directly to particular functionality, the happier I am. I don't want my bass control buried under layers of menus, and I don't want my software controls buried, either. So I dunno about that boomer argument. We grew up with complex interfaces. Someone took that idea away from us right about the time the programmable VCR came out, and ever since then, there's been a whole class of people who "can't run stuff." Coincidence? I think not. Just bad design, started by some clown who thought that minimal == better. It doesn't. It just == minimal.
I didn't forget any of that. I mentioned them specifically. Go back, read again. Note the specific mentions of those items.
I've been designing computer systems and subsystems since the 1970s; I have written small and medium size specialized real time operating systems both for commercial and military use, designed numerous dedicated controllers on both the hardware and software sides, CPU subsystems, graphics subsystems (vector, raster and hybrid) compilers, assemblers, a couple of decent languages, real time I/O, gaming machines, graphics and audio drivers, codecs, and one of my best friends was responsible for most of QNX's display card drivers, about which we had many discussions. In short, don't you worry about what I understand about computers. My point was, and is, that current designs don't go this way but there is no technical reason a design can't go this way.
As for price, realistic software pricing is based on units distributed. There is no way to predict pricing until you know the ultimate market penetration. Even planning pricing moderately well requires that you make a decent guess. As for complexity, you can't mention Windows in the same post with "user's don't want the complexity" and retain any credibility. Windows is a train wreck of complexity, non-orthogonal control, unreliability and incompatibility complemented by a stupendously badly implemented system registry and various DRM diseases. If it isn't clamoring for a reboot, it wants you to know your firewall is out of compliance, your computer "may" (ha!) not be protected against various threats, and that by the way, you're running as administrator, and consequently, so is your spyware infection. Now, M. User, press the "start" button to "stop" your computer. Best not to get me any further down the road about Windows complexity and the problems subsequent to same.
If users actually wanted non-complex system management, they'd all be running OSX (in my estimation, the only consumer-friendly OS available today, specifically excluding other *nix and windows, both of which I am intimately familiar with, to my general grief.) The fact is, users buy what marketing convinces them to buy, and then they suffer because most of them don't know any better and the remainder are locked into the choice by applications they have come to depend upon (or games they love, whatever) even if they do know better.
None of that analysis is required unless the configuration has changed, which is not usually (hardly ever, in fact) the case.
No. I didn't. Once the drive is spinning, you can simply and quickly load a (relatively) large block of memory from one set area of the HD (think larger boot record) that contains a last-known-working configuration for all those things in one (relatively speaking) long disk operation. This stuff can check the basic resources (mouse, display card, memory, kb, hd, cpu) to see if they're the same, and if they are (and 99.99999% of the time, they will be) just smack them in the registers according to the last known configuration and take off. Boot time could be a fraction of a second with a modern HD, CPU, display and a few gigs of memory. So clearly, I'm not talking about what Windows does. I'm talking about doing something else entirely, which thing would be boot quickly to a minimalist working system that complies with the user's last set of choices as far as it goes, let the user begin to interact, and bring up everything else in the background without chewing up large chunks of CPU time or locking out the user unless they require something that isn't yet available. I already described what to do in that case in my first post.
Doesn't have to be an issue. Ask yourself how long it really has to take to reserve a hunk of memory from a system that is coming up in the most initial boot phase and is known not to yet have handed off any tasks? A few machine instructions: A call, lift a pointer, push, LEA past the end of the segment, bounds check, put the pointer back, pop, return. Maybe two or three times that if you want to track memory use in a really fancy way. Earmark the memory for the driver, which can pick it up later. Simple, gets the job done. In other words, if memory really needs to be reserved, then do that at startup. That's not the same kind of imposition on the user's time as loading a driver and testing hardware and banging up and down the PCI bus and trying to get a response from (what may be the wrong) DNS server and so on. I'm just saying that if you need to reserve memory on boot for some reason, that poses no obstacles whatsoever in terms of time or technical implementation. And for those cases when there is no network, the memory can be released by the network driver at the user's request -- or not. Be nice if the user could actually use all the resources they paid for the way they want to, eh?
Because linux is an old-school design as per my initial post?
The problem is old-school linear thinking we've inherited.
There is no technical reason that a computer could not wake up, verify the keyboard, memory, hd, mouse and display are the same (in a few microseconds, probably) and be up and responding very well to the user, while (new concept, brace yourselves) the computer carefully brings up other hardware subsystems and makes them available as they become functional. You could be in a word processor, graphics editor, all manner of things that don't require more hardware until you do something like print or attempt to access the network; if those subsystems are not ready when you try to use them, the design would allow for [establishing hardware, wait or cancel] and there you have it.
There is no problem whatsoever with plug and play concepts coexisting with fast usability other than current design shortcomings end users have been forced to live with. The computer is running as soon as the HD is spinning, memory sized, and the video card is on and the KB and mouse work. Just because current operating systems don't let you begin working at that time isn't a reflection on plug and play as a concept, it's a reflection of linear thinking that descends from old single tasking systems like early DOS.
The idea that a 2...3 GHz 32 or 64 bit CPU cannot bring itself to decent usability in under a second is one that is silly right on the face of it except in that common systems are using old school thinking and layering more and more crap on top of that thinking. There is not a thing in the world that says drivers can't be loaded on demand, or after usability from boot, or separately. Nothing.
Honestly, I stopped using Yahoo when the original beautiful user-supplied index became a pay-to-link operation. Soon, instead of cool little places you'd never heard of that had something unique to offer, it was nothing but an index of larger commercial sites. Many interesting sites I still had in my bookmarks that I knew were still active disappeared from the index, and Yahoo failed to answer even the plainest on inquiries about the index. Anything they did after that I ignored. And of course, then Google pretty much obsoleted all the other search engines (which Yahoo was not, it was a tree-structured index), and then finally the open directory project came along and replaced what Yahoo used to be good for.
So... if bits were paper, Yahoo is what would wrap my fish.
First, let me say that I agree with your sentiment completely; however, the reasoning (sophist, in my view) put forward by the USSC was that "registration" isn't punishment, it is a "legitimate state function" where the state "has an interest", and therefore, not being punishment it is no problem to apply it to someone after sentencing.
The very idea that registration is "not punishment" strikes me as the very worst kind of operating under false colors. The consequences of registration itself are so far-reaching, so severe, and so unavoidable by the registrant that I am left drop-jawed by the "argument" that it isn't punishment. And that is without the later additions; the national registry, the limits on where and how registered people can live, the inclusion in credit reports and job evaluations, and now, apparently, their online activities. I find the entire thing to be amazing on the one hand, and terrifying on the other. For I take to heart that whole bit about "first they came for..."
Someone is wandering around slashdot with a signature that says something along the lines of "the root passwords to the constitution are terrorism and child pornography"; I think that goes right to the heart of the matter.
Another issue that is relevant is that this is not the only area in which the interpretation of the constitution is absurdly out of whack; it is almost the style of the USSC to interpret it in a wacky, "you must be out of your bloody mind" mode. The interstate commerce clause has also been subject to some amazingly circuitous (to be kind) reasoning in both its intent and application.
For the most part (with the notable exception of the 13th amendment's direct authorization of slavery) the constitution is an amazingly prescient and rock-solid foundation for a government. It is really too bad that it isn't used that way.
For crying out loud... "sex offender" is not a synonym for "fucking children."
It means everything from peeing on a bush outside to having consensual sex with a consenting partner of reasonable age who decided later to use it against you to having taken completely innocent photos of your own kid. And it does include people who prey on children, I'll grant you, but the point is the brush is now too broad because legislators are idiots; if they go with the email thing you'll have learned nothing useful except how to jitter and freak out about a bunch of people who are likely to be absolutely zero threat to you and any children, anywhere.
Control your legislators, people. Come on. And think!
Selling a couple xian tunes w/o drm isn't going to exactly cause a wave of common sense to break out. Does anyone actually listen to this crap?
The American southwest, good grief, no! Just replace Hoboken. Have you ever been to Hoboken? Digging that place out would be like excising a cancer, you'd vastly improve the New Jersey air quality and water table, and covering more of the clear spaces out west just ruins more of what free space that remains.
I'm sure the Hoboken population would make at least mid-quality soylent green...