... we called a 5.25 hard drive a "mini-winnie" since the established 8 inch hard drive at that time was called a Winchester .
Back then the two CP/M Z-80 "micro computers" at university lab where I did my class work used 8 inch floppies. Real floppy disk Users dismissed mini floppies not only because of it's paltry storage capacity but because some pinhead decided to reduce the disk rotation speed of the mini floppy by one half thus reducing its data transmission rate. At least that's how I remember it.
Some other graybeard is gonna have to take over for me now cuz I gotta go chase some kids off my lawn...
So put #!/usr/bin/python2.6 or whatever in your scripts
How about making the "whatever" look like '#!python:v2.6' instead? Full pathnames are ludicrously fragile and have been long overdue for retirement. To wit:
"Dude, I keep my cash stashed in my mattress."
"No way, man, I use my underwear drawer."
"Pshaw! You losers are both, like, totally lame. I keep mine in my underwear.
Certainly, if they spraypainted their message in 2ft high letters on the exterior of your house, you'd be understandably less interested in the actual message than in cleaning the graffiti and contacting the constabulary.
Y'all ain't ever lived in a trailer park, have ya?
Who needs a super-thin, super-light laptop and is willing to pay a premium for it? People who are traveling a great deal and need to carry it around all day long.
If you can figure out how to cram an optical drive, removable battery, Ethernet and FireWire ports into a super-thin, super-light laptop, just go ahead and do it!
Go ahead. I'll wait.
[tapping foot]
[checking watch]
[rolling eyes]
[sighs]
What, can't do it?
What a surprise.
Sure, it's pretty. But it makes way too many compromises to be practical. The advantages over the regular Macbook are insignificant for the price and sacrifices.
*click* [pointing gun to his head and cocking it]
[speaking in bad German* accent] But you haf no choise. You vill buy zee übertin vun! Now!
* Feel free to substitute with any accent you wish but you must do your own transliteration. I suggest French or Russian... except for French the gun could be replaced with, perhaps, waving a glass of white wine while staring down one's nose with a haughty glare.
Don't get me wrong, I love the Wii. I just think that people who claim it's selling because it's cheap are misguided.
I tend to agree with you. However, there are quite a few people who also think that Macs are a lot more expensive than window boxes but never compare the price to a comparably equipped name brand PC such as a Dell or HP. However (again) there are a lot of people are oblivious to what the extra features can or can't do for them.
I do think it's fair to say that the lower price of the base Wii can act like a camel's nose in a tent.
Wii - $250
Wii Play w/Wiimote - $50,
Two more Wiimotes - $80,
An extra Nunchuk - $20,
Component Video Cable - $20
Wii Play and remote bundle, sure. Extra nunchuck? Yeah, if you want to to box against a human.
But two extra remotes? And a component cable? Sorry, dude, not necessary. If you can find two extra friends to share your Wii-xperience, they can buy their own damn remotes.:-j And there's plenty of returned component cables out there since many many people can't even detect the difference between 480i and 470p; I got a good deal on a used one at a Game Stop.
People who buy the Wii want it for the innovative game play, and nothing else satisfies that demand.
Spot on. I am in the key Wii-mographic. I'm a formumble-something who has never owned a video game; there has been little point since I've already spent thousands of dollars on computers over the years -- plus I'm really lousy at shoot 'em ups. Hell, I'm having trouble to find one person to come play Wii with me... my wife can't even handle Wii Sports tennis . After all, the only way I could convince her to let me [cough] buy one is to get my butt off the chair in front of the computer and get some exercise. (It worked too until I got a cold and got sucked into Paper Mario , a great game for people like me who have... less than nimble fingers.. make that much less.)
Uh... where was I? Oh yeah; what I'm saying is that key Wii-mographic Wii-ple will buy just enough extras to get started and get more if they become sucked into the Wii-xperience. Take me for example. I bought the Wii Play when I got the unit. A month or so later I bought a component. Another few weeks and I've downloaded a few virtual console games. Now I have my eyes on Rayman Raving Rabbids . If it wasn't for the fact that I already have a bunch of rechargable batteries I'd have sunk more money into my new addic... er, pastime.
I didn't RTFA (I must not be new here) but people don't choose Macs because of any of the Apple's features.
There is some truth to that. TFA featured Windows equivalents of the Dock, Exposé, Dashboard, Spaces, and -- for lack of a better term -- window & desktop skins. None of those will convince Average User to pick any OS over another.
People choose Macs for stability and freedom from viruses and other shitware (the reasons we wipe Windows and install Linux) and because some high end graphics programs either aren't ported to Windows or are ported badly.
While you do cite stability I would instead describe the reasons people choose a Mac as:
It is easier to use
It Just Works
Malware and bloatware is gravy. Aside from viruses, most users take everything else that is evil for granted and are often incredulous as to all the crap (including viruses) that is missing on the Mac; you virtually have to show them a working Mac before they can fully grasp the reality.
Ask your Average User who has any sort of clue why a Mac would be a good choice (and I have asked many over the years) and the typical response is that "it's easier to use" (seriously!) and something like "isn't it good for graphics?"
Easier to use refers to the interface. The Mac interface is (generally) simple, clean, and intuitable (the amount of intuition spread across individuals of the human population is not constant). A person left alone with a Mac will often be able to perform basic tasks with little or no help. Which leads to...
"It just works" means that the Out of the Box experience is virtually painless. The most troublesome is configuring email; it can be for me too but I know what information I need and manage to find it though some ISPs [coughroadrunnercough] do their best to make it difficult to find.
Installing software and peripherals most often goes without a hitch and using them continues to do so. I've known countless numbers of Windows users who simply give up using printers, scanners, mice, and whatever else you can think of; fewer than Mac users to be sure.
This whole idea of 'choice overload' is so much drivel,...
Have you ever known anybody to say: "There are just too many girls to choose from, I guess I'll go hide in the basement."?
There's plenty of software out there are like Taun Tauns -- they smell bad enough on the outside. For instance, after finally getting into a BIOS setup screen (hold down which the F-what ke... damn, too late), do you really need to see the code to know what it smells like?
Moore has predicted the end of his own law in 10 to 15 years
Less's Moore Law predicts that the predicted rate of prediction production of the predicted end of Moore's Law increases by 1.15 times per month as the predicted end of Moore's Law approaches.
Note: if my name was actually Les, then the name of Less's Moore Law would be different -- and totally awsome.
They just linked 4 motherboards together. My cat could do that.
Sure. But then your cat would have to moonlight as a mouser, run errands for the neighborhood dogs, and -- worst of all -- give up catnip; all in order to pay for the project.
I would not want to live in the same house as a sleep deprived cat going through catnip withdrawl.
See, in a place like Ireland it's considered near criminal to waste ale or lager. So the thought of alcohol evaporating is a disturbing thought to most Irishmen and Irishwomen. It bothers them much like the thought of global warming bothers environmentalists.
Aye. And the fact that a post from someone who didn't get the bleepin' joke gets modded up as "Insightful" is highly disturbing to us humorists. So...
A termite walks into a bar and says, "is the bar tender here?"
The iPhone, just like the Mac, has plenty of buttons.
There are just not many hardware buttons. Really. Bear with me...
Compare the number of buttons in MS-DOS (or other CLI) interfaces against those on the Mac. The "menus" of a CLI interfacer are like menus at Chinese restaurant. Except, of course, with a CLI you can't point and say "I want this."
But wait! There's more! A standard Microsoft alert dialog box -- Windows and Mac OS -- typically has a longwinded description of the problem and the same two buttons to respond with: No and Yes. I have an example right here from MS Word for Mac OS X:
Continue with Save?
This document may contain formating or password protection which will be lost when save in Text Only format. To preserve the original document, click No, and then save the document in Word format before converting.
No Yes
The line "Continue with Save" in itself is rather vague; the user must plow through a lengthly bit of prose (for a GUI) to ascertain just what is going to happen. I'm convinced that Microsoft if using FUD to bully the user to always save their documents in Word format. Changing from any other format to Word format never generates a scary warning.
Contrast Microsoft buttons to Mac buttons using TextEdit. Changing an RTF document to text the dialog reads:
Convert this document to plain text?
If you convert this document, you will lose all text styles (such as fonts and colors) and document properties.
Cancel OK
The differences are striking:
The buttons Cancel and OK are used throughout the Mac interface and the meaning is always clear: OK means go and Cancel means stop.
The meaning of Yes and No are only clear within context. In many, if not most, Microsoft applications, if you choose No, it may not stop, it may go on and do something different. I find most everybody tends to stop and read that lengthly prose to make sure what is going to happen if it's something they haven't done in a while; there's just too much information to gather in at a glance.
"Continue with save?" What's that going to do exactly? (This is one of the clearer Microsoft title question so it's not the best example).
"Convert this document to plain text?" Ah, it's going to... well, the answer is in the question.
Buttons? It's not how many that's important, it's how soft and clear they are.
The prediction overlooks far too many inconveniences that technology hasn't yet resolved.
The need to regularly plug in the laptop.
Nnnnyyyyyuuhhh... yes and no.
For many people, the portable is replacing the desktop on the desktop. Just as many people buy pickup trucks because they might transport some stuff that won't fit into a car or SUV, they may occasionally take their computer away with them.
Therefore, for these kind of people the computer is plugged in the majority of the time.
More succinctly, many people aren't actually mobilizing their mobile computer therefore unresolved technical issues don't rate very high to the user.
An issue not discussed in TFA -- mostly because it would not be very provocative -- is that the laptop market is a huge void that has just started to be filled. Think of all the people who buy mobile phones even though they still have some connected to their landline at home (anyone here remember when there was typically only one phone in a household?)
A more intriguing question is that if I'm correct about the laptop market catching up to the desktop market, is will the "laptop" be an undisputedly superior choice? Perhaps the desktop will become the workstation of yesterday: a powerful, expensive machine that even prosumers would find no need for.
According to the linked text, the "average" person can see 2 pixels at about 2 minutes of arc, and has a field of view of 100 degrees. There are 30 sets of...
No, no, no! It's simpler than that: how easy will it be for me to follow the puck during the Stanley Cup Playoffs?
(Regular season is OK too but, hey, t'is the season... er, post-season).
Slashdot Mirror
I agree. Intact digits are even more overrated than computer software
... we called a 5.25 hard drive a "mini-winnie" since the established 8 inch hard drive at that time was called a Winchester .
Back then the two CP/M Z-80 "micro computers" at university lab where I did my class work used 8 inch floppies. Real floppy disk Users dismissed mini floppies not only because of it's paltry storage capacity but because some pinhead decided to reduce the disk rotation speed of the mini floppy by one half thus reducing its data transmission rate. At least that's how I remember it.
Some other graybeard is gonna have to take over for me now cuz I gotta go chase some kids off my lawn...
How about making the "whatever" look like '#!python:v2.6' instead? Full pathnames are ludicrously fragile and have been long overdue for retirement. To wit:
"Dude, I keep my cash stashed in my mattress."
"No way, man, I use my underwear drawer."
"Pshaw! You losers are both, like, totally lame. I keep mine in my underwear.
Y'all ain't ever lived in a trailer park, have ya?
If you can figure out how to cram an optical drive, removable battery, Ethernet and FireWire ports into a super-thin, super-light laptop, just go ahead and do it!
Go ahead. I'll wait.
[tapping foot]
[checking watch]
[rolling eyes]
[sighs]
What, can't do it?
What a surprise.
*click* [pointing gun to his head and cocking it]
[speaking in bad German* accent] But you haf no choise. You vill buy zee übertin vun! Now!
* Feel free to substitute with any accent you wish but you must do your own transliteration. I suggest French or Russian... except for French the gun could be replaced with, perhaps, waving a glass of white wine while staring down one's nose with a haughty glare.
I tend to agree with you. However, there are quite a few people who also think that Macs are a lot more expensive than window boxes but never compare the price to a comparably equipped name brand PC such as a Dell or HP. However (again) there are a lot of people are oblivious to what the extra features can or can't do for them.
I do think it's fair to say that the lower price of the base Wii can act like a camel's nose in a tent.
Wii Play and remote bundle, sure. Extra nunchuck? Yeah, if you want to to box against a human.
But two extra remotes? And a component cable? Sorry, dude, not necessary. If you can find two extra friends to share your Wii-xperience, they can buy their own damn remotes. :-j And there's plenty of returned component cables out there since many many people can't even detect the difference between 480i and 470p; I got a good deal on a used one at a Game Stop.
Spot on. I am in the key Wii-mographic. I'm a formumble-something who has never owned a video game; there has been little point since I've already spent thousands of dollars on computers over the years -- plus I'm really lousy at shoot 'em ups. Hell, I'm having trouble to find one person to come play Wii with me... my wife can't even handle Wii Sports tennis . After all, the only way I could convince her to let me [cough] buy one is to get my butt off the chair in front of the computer and get some exercise. (It worked too until I got a cold and got sucked into Paper Mario , a great game for people like me who have... less than nimble fingers.. make that much less.)
Uh... where was I? Oh yeah; what I'm saying is that key Wii-mographic Wii-ple will buy just enough extras to get started and get more if they become sucked into the Wii-xperience. Take me for example. I bought the Wii Play when I got the unit. A month or so later I bought a component. Another few weeks and I've downloaded a few virtual console games. Now I have my eyes on Rayman Raving Rabbids . If it wasn't for the fact that I already have a bunch of rechargable batteries I'd have sunk more money into my new addic... er, pastime.
Do any of them involve the use of rubber chickens and a garrote?
Nothing to see here; move along.
There is some truth to that. TFA featured Windows equivalents of the Dock, Exposé, Dashboard, Spaces, and -- for lack of a better term -- window & desktop skins. None of those will convince Average User to pick any OS over another.
While you do cite stability I would instead describe the reasons people choose a Mac as:
Malware and bloatware is gravy. Aside from viruses, most users take everything else that is evil for granted and are often incredulous as to all the crap (including viruses) that is missing on the Mac; you virtually have to show them a working Mac before they can fully grasp the reality.
Ask your Average User who has any sort of clue why a Mac would be a good choice (and I have asked many over the years) and the typical response is that "it's easier to use" (seriously!) and something like "isn't it good for graphics?"
Easier to use refers to the interface. The Mac interface is (generally) simple, clean, and intuitable (the amount of intuition spread across individuals of the human population is not constant). A person left alone with a Mac will often be able to perform basic tasks with little or no help. Which leads to...
"It just works" means that the Out of the Box experience is virtually painless. The most troublesome is configuring email; it can be for me too but I know what information I need and manage to find it though some ISPs [coughroadrunnercough] do their best to make it difficult to find.
Installing software and peripherals most often goes without a hitch and using them continues to do so. I've known countless numbers of Windows users who simply give up using printers, scanners, mice, and whatever else you can think of; fewer than Mac users to be sure.
It's all the fault of that screwy wabbit.
So that's why I like living in the basement.
Code? I don't need to see no stinkin' code!
There's plenty of software out there are like Taun Tauns -- they smell bad enough on the outside. For instance, after finally getting into a BIOS setup screen (hold down which the F-what ke... damn, too late), do you really need to see the code to know what it smells like?
Less's Moore Law predicts that the predicted rate of prediction production of the predicted end of Moore's Law increases by 1.15 times per month as the predicted end of Moore's Law approaches.
Note: if my name was actually Les, then the name of Less's Moore Law would be different -- and totally awsome.
Please... don't use the words porn, spill, and browser in the same sentence...
...but not any easier to get to go with you on a date, unfortunately. [sigh]
Sure. But then your cat would have to moonlight as a mouser, run errands for the neighborhood dogs, and -- worst of all -- give up catnip; all in order to pay for the project.
I would not want to live in the same house as a sleep deprived cat going through catnip withdrawl.
[blink] [blink] These days?
[smoke leaking through ears] THESE days?
[face color goes from red, bright orange, then blinding white] THESE DAYS????!
[head explodes]
Aye. And the fact that a post from someone who didn't get the bleepin' joke gets modded up as "Insightful" is highly disturbing to us humorists. So...
A termite walks into a bar and says, "is the bar tender here?"
Though you may not be blind, you really should have stopped sooner.
The iPhone, just like the Mac, has plenty of buttons.
There are just not many hardware buttons. Really. Bear with me...
Compare the number of buttons in MS-DOS (or other CLI) interfaces against those on the Mac. The "menus" of a CLI interfacer are like menus at Chinese restaurant. Except, of course, with a CLI you can't point and say "I want this."
But wait! There's more! A standard Microsoft alert dialog box -- Windows and Mac OS -- typically has a longwinded description of the problem and the same two buttons to respond with: No and Yes. I have an example right here from MS Word for Mac OS X:
The line "Continue with Save" in itself is rather vague; the user must plow through a lengthly bit of prose (for a GUI) to ascertain just what is going to happen. I'm convinced that Microsoft if using FUD to bully the user to always save their documents in Word format. Changing from any other format to Word format never generates a scary warning.
Contrast Microsoft buttons to Mac buttons using TextEdit. Changing an RTF document to text the dialog reads:
The differences are striking:
The meaning of Yes and No are only clear within context. In many, if not most, Microsoft applications, if you choose No, it may not stop, it may go on and do something different. I find most everybody tends to stop and read that lengthly prose to make sure what is going to happen if it's something they haven't done in a while; there's just too much information to gather in at a glance.
"Convert this document to plain text?" Ah, it's going to... well, the answer is in the question.
Buttons? It's not how many that's important, it's how soft and clear they are.
The prediction overlooks far too many inconveniences that technology hasn't yet resolved.
The need to regularly plug in the laptop.
Nnnnyyyyyuuhhh... yes and no.
For many people, the portable is replacing the desktop on the desktop. Just as many people buy pickup trucks because they might transport some stuff that won't fit into a car or SUV, they may occasionally take their computer away with them. Therefore, for these kind of people the computer is plugged in the majority of the time.
More succinctly, many people aren't actually mobilizing their mobile computer therefore unresolved technical issues don't rate very high to the user.
An issue not discussed in TFA -- mostly because it would not be very provocative -- is that the laptop market is a huge void that has just started to be filled. Think of all the people who buy mobile phones even though they still have some connected to their landline at home (anyone here remember when there was typically only one phone in a household?)
A more intriguing question is that if I'm correct about the laptop market catching up to the desktop market, is will the "laptop" be an undisputedly superior choice? Perhaps the desktop will become the workstation of yesterday: a powerful, expensive machine that even prosumers would find no need for.
First, just think of a hurricane as a honking big horseshoe holding a handgrenade...
Huh? OK, if you really want one... [hands out number bibs]
On your marks...
Set...
Bang!
No, no, no! It's simpler than that: how easy will it be for me to follow the puck during the Stanley Cup Playoffs?
(Regular season is OK too but, hey, t'is the season... er, post-season).