...but what they all do is; make programming fun, intuitive and, above all, extremely productive.
...but what they all do is: make programming fun, intuitive and, above all, extremely productive.
Fixed that for you. Colons are usually for presentations of thought or situation (subject intro: subject), semicolons are for two phrases common through thought or consequence (situation; consequence). It took me a while to figure that out, especially since practically no-one outside of the written press use colons and semicolons anymore. No, programmers don't count in this context ; )
I really don't get the religion comparison - Computers are (dis)proven quality utilities that serve a purpose, not a mystical path to a mysterious (and unproven) end. Yes, Apple has the 'cult family' feeling that PC doesn't (their attitude is one more of dogged obligation), and so does Catholicism - but the comparison ends there.
If I really wanted to make a comparison to religion, I'd compare Microsoft to those religions that insist on indoctrinating the very young and ignorant: Microsoft owes its entire fortune to the deal it made with IBM, by shipping 'for free' in 90% of desktop computers, being the first OS that new computer user 'learned' how to use. Next came the 'compatibility lock-in' (imagine being a non-catholic during the inquisition) and they've dominated the market ever since. To top the religion cake, they've never been the best or the first of much of anything, so it is quite possible to say quite factually that they aren't the 'best' product out there - whereas a conclusive discussion about what religion is best is an exercise in futility and well-nigh impossible.
I was in agreement with you until around a year ago. I've developed a ~lot~ in flash over the years and, although I liked the ease of use (gui) and headache-less (all-browser-compatible) coding, I could never get it out of my head that flash was basically DHTML within a proprietary framework. Today, thanks to javascript libraries such as jQuery (that takes care of cross-browser issues by itself), it is becoming almost (but not quite) as easy to manipulate graphics and text as using flash. jQuery is already ahead of the css game in implementing 'cross-class' transitions ('morphing' an object from one style class to another) that will only be available in css3. And as soon as browsers begin to accept.svg as a format, things will ~really~ get rocking as far as cross-media-any-display-size graphics are concerned.
The future looks much brighter since IE (8) has become a better-behaved (rather than web-breaking) browser; I must say though, in looking at the 'Web o' Wonder' demo site, I was a bit dismayed at the 'browser-specific' features. I as a webmaster will be avoiding these (as I always have done), until they are accepted by all browsers as a standard feature (called through a standard syntax).
The 'meteorite idea' seems moot from the start: for a meteorite to have some importance in the 'creation of life', it has to either a) bring the elements lacking (until then) from a life-creating environment for the planet (a theory that you've disproven quite eloquently), or b) somehow be the 'instigator', between ingredients already existing on the planet, of the process that was the creation of life.
Bioforms are a natural occurance even in space; it is their environment that limits (or accellerates) the degree and speed of their evolution into more 'adapted' forms.
...upon their arrival into its atmosphere, through the use of low-flying shuttles, open bay doors and copious amounts of beer, the crewmembers embarked on their ultimate goal for the planet: spreading life.
I totally agree - this move is a direct attack on Google. This was my first thought when I read the article title - When is MS going to use their b(tr)illions to make a good product without resorting to half-assed copying and underhanded moves?
...especially when they start answering "that tickles!"
Voice recognition has been around since years!
on
Talking To Computers?
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· Score: 2
Every mac OS since 10.0 has had speech recognition - I had some fun with it when it came out, but lost interest after a while. My disenchantment may have had something to do with having to vocalise (for all to hear) every command I made - and can you imagine the yammer of a roomful of computer operators? I'm looking forward to thought-recognition software.
I have 20/10 vision, but it's the difference between the eyes that allows such a large depth of clear vision; one eye 'leads' for close objects, and the other for objects far. Unfortunately, the 'fatigue factor' for those with vision like that is twofold; my doctor told me that I would be wearing glasses at thirty-five.
Jobs is an ergonomics savant - something severely lacking in today's computer industry. His talent is finding the envelope between what people do do and can do, and enticing users to buy products that are just far enough into the 'can' territory for them to grasp - and appreciate. I could even go as far as to say that it's not just Apple's future on the line in that regard, it's that of the entire computer industry.
Jobs before was more of a maverick than anything, but through his persistance, all in maintaining his maverick status, he has also become a financial heavywheight. These days, the 'commercial guys' are slow to finance the production of any product that isn't selling already, so Jobs is even more alone in his role. If we really want to have more innovators in the marketplace, the finance guys are going to have to grow a pair and start financing projects that benifit the user experience before all, not just sales.
LOL I do the same, but as parent mentioned, my habits have changed: I no longer download to the desktop, I have a specific folder (on an external hard drive) for everything downloaded through a browser. Today my desktop is populated by mostly screenshots and reference images (for web development/design), and periodically I put these into a 'date_putaway' folder that I dump into a parent 'putaway' directory. Today 'putaway' contains about 6go of data through around 20 sub-folders... but spring cleaning time ~is~ just around the corner.
...until it becomes a real insturment, perhaps. I do understand the 'social experience' of the game (consider it 'physical karaoke', if you will), but the core of its attraction is: allowing you to pretend you know how to do something you don't. We all revere guitar gods (even I, who actually play the instrument), but it takes a lot of work to be like them, and Guitar Hero, like 'air guitar', is an easy path to 'pretend'.
I must admit that Guitar Hero must be a riot to those who actually know how to play the guitar - it adds a whole new (social) dimension of funny ; )
I think future generations will look back on the days where everyone thought 'Guitar Hero' was 'cool' much in the same way as my generation looks back at the days where 'air guitar' was cool: with a shudder of embarrassment.
Microsoft has always been 99% marketing, and on the innovation side, far behind in the game. Now things are moving forward at such a pace that they ~need~ to innovate something to survive, at the same time as Balmer wants to keep his job, so the 'new' Balmer strategy is: hire underlings that will do the needed job, then take all the credit for any innovation because it was created by the underlings you hired.
Slashdot Mirror
...but what they all do is; make programming fun, intuitive and, above all, extremely productive.
...but what they all do is: make programming fun, intuitive and, above all, extremely productive.
Fixed that for you. Colons are usually for presentations of thought or situation (subject intro: subject), semicolons are for two phrases common through thought or consequence (situation; consequence). It took me a while to figure that out, especially since practically no-one outside of the written press use colons and semicolons anymore. No, programmers don't count in this context ; )
Normally, drunks find ~you~.
I really don't get the religion comparison - Computers are (dis)proven quality utilities that serve a purpose, not a mystical path to a mysterious (and unproven) end. Yes, Apple has the 'cult family' feeling that PC doesn't (their attitude is one more of dogged obligation), and so does Catholicism - but the comparison ends there.
If I really wanted to make a comparison to religion, I'd compare Microsoft to those religions that insist on indoctrinating the very young and ignorant: Microsoft owes its entire fortune to the deal it made with IBM, by shipping 'for free' in 90% of desktop computers, being the first OS that new computer user 'learned' how to use. Next came the 'compatibility lock-in' (imagine being a non-catholic during the inquisition) and they've dominated the market ever since. To top the religion cake, they've never been the best or the first of much of anything, so it is quite possible to say quite factually that they aren't the 'best' product out there - whereas a conclusive discussion about what religion is best is an exercise in futility and well-nigh impossible.
I was in agreement with you until around a year ago. I've developed a ~lot~ in flash over the years and, although I liked the ease of use (gui) and headache-less (all-browser-compatible) coding, I could never get it out of my head that flash was basically DHTML within a proprietary framework. Today, thanks to javascript libraries such as jQuery (that takes care of cross-browser issues by itself), it is becoming almost (but not quite) as easy to manipulate graphics and text as using flash. jQuery is already ahead of the css game in implementing 'cross-class' transitions ('morphing' an object from one style class to another) that will only be available in css3. And as soon as browsers begin to accept .svg as a format, things will ~really~ get rocking as far as cross-media-any-display-size graphics are concerned.
The future looks much brighter since IE (8) has become a better-behaved (rather than web-breaking) browser; I must say though, in looking at the 'Web o' Wonder' demo site, I was a bit dismayed at the 'browser-specific' features. I as a webmaster will be avoiding these (as I always have done), until they are accepted by all browsers as a standard feature (called through a standard syntax).
Well, if space stretches on all sides of me to infinity, that would mean that ~I~ am the centre of the universe.
No, you're not missing anything at all.
The 'meteorite idea' seems moot from the start: for a meteorite to have some importance in the 'creation of life', it has to either a) bring the elements lacking (until then) from a life-creating environment for the planet (a theory that you've disproven quite eloquently), or b) somehow be the 'instigator', between ingredients already existing on the planet, of the process that was the creation of life.
Bioforms are a natural occurance even in space; it is their environment that limits (or accellerates) the degree and speed of their evolution into more 'adapted' forms.
...upon their arrival into its atmosphere, through the use of low-flying shuttles, open bay doors and copious amounts of beer, the crewmembers embarked on their ultimate goal for the planet: spreading life.
...they crawl on mine.
I totally agree - this move is a direct attack on Google. This was my first thought when I read the article title - When is MS going to use their b(tr)illions to make a good product without resorting to half-assed copying and underhanded moves?
You live in Kenya?
...especially when they start answering "that tickles!"
Every mac OS since 10.0 has had speech recognition - I had some fun with it when it came out, but lost interest after a while. My disenchantment may have had something to do with having to vocalise (for all to hear) every command I made - and can you imagine the yammer of a roomful of computer operators? I'm looking forward to thought-recognition software.
I have 20/10 vision, but it's the difference between the eyes that allows such a large depth of clear vision; one eye 'leads' for close objects, and the other for objects far. Unfortunately, the 'fatigue factor' for those with vision like that is twofold; my doctor told me that I would be wearing glasses at thirty-five.
So the human race ~is~ devoluting!
Jobs is an ergonomics savant - something severely lacking in today's computer industry. His talent is finding the envelope between what people do do and can do, and enticing users to buy products that are just far enough into the 'can' territory for them to grasp - and appreciate. I could even go as far as to say that it's not just Apple's future on the line in that regard, it's that of the entire computer industry.
Jobs before was more of a maverick than anything, but through his persistance, all in maintaining his maverick status, he has also become a financial heavywheight. These days, the 'commercial guys' are slow to finance the production of any product that isn't selling already, so Jobs is even more alone in his role. If we really want to have more innovators in the marketplace, the finance guys are going to have to grow a pair and start financing projects that benifit the user experience before all, not just sales.
Almost! I think it would be called 'ScatUp'. As soon as I find a link to confirm this, I'll squirt it to you.
MS is re-implementing experience that users are already accustomed to
...and pushing it on their greater yet-unaware market share... in other words: business as usual!
LOL I do the same, but as parent mentioned, my habits have changed: I no longer download to the desktop, I have a specific folder (on an external hard drive) for everything downloaded through a browser. Today my desktop is populated by mostly screenshots and reference images (for web development/design), and periodically I put these into a 'date_putaway' folder that I dump into a parent 'putaway' directory. Today 'putaway' contains about 6go of data through around 20 sub-folders... but spring cleaning time ~is~ just around the corner.
I never would have thought that there would be so many Guitar Hero 'players' at /. ; ) Sorry if I offended.
which gets more and more complex to use
...until it becomes a real insturment, perhaps. I do understand the 'social experience' of the game (consider it 'physical karaoke', if you will), but the core of its attraction is: allowing you to pretend you know how to do something you don't. We all revere guitar gods (even I, who actually play the instrument), but it takes a lot of work to be like them, and Guitar Hero, like 'air guitar', is an easy path to 'pretend'.
I must admit that Guitar Hero must be a riot to those who actually know how to play the guitar - it adds a whole new (social) dimension of funny ; )
If my grandaddy doesn't do anything about his car's suspension, they're going to be repaving every road he drives on.
I think future generations will look back on the days where everyone thought 'Guitar Hero' was 'cool' much in the same way as my generation looks back at the days where 'air guitar' was cool: with a shudder of embarrassment.
Cuss or laugh, it's auto-criticism. Learning from your mistakes (as well as those of others) a great programmer makes.
Microsoft has always been 99% marketing, and on the innovation side, far behind in the game. Now things are moving forward at such a pace that they ~need~ to innovate something to survive, at the same time as Balmer wants to keep his job, so the 'new' Balmer strategy is: hire underlings that will do the needed job, then take all the credit for any innovation because it was created by the underlings you hired.
Balmer obviously doesn't read Dilbert.
(Good) programmers tend to cuss at ~themselves~ .