I recently had an oppertunity to develop a.Net app for a Pocket PC. One of my primary design and layout considerations was to make the buttons thumbable. With larger buttons and small dead space between them, you lose a lot of screen space, but the app can then be used with out a stylus making it significantly easier to get around in.
"There will always be a few people trying to hide stuff. Simple technical fixes such as page limits would by themselves not help much. More helpful is a continuing commitment to keep things simple, stop trying to abuse every loophole to the max, and most of all not to praise and reward people who made their fortunes by hoodwinking the system through byzantine manueverings."
I disagree. For over two hundred years the US has had elections in which campaigners pledged reform, responsibility and ethics. Where has it gotten us? Not far. True, it would be great if everyone suddenly began operating ethically, but in all reality, it's not going to happen. Especially when $9 billion in tax cuts are on the line. A Minor technical limit that reduces confusion on the floor and helps reduce the amount of pork projects, piggy backing, and corruption would have a pretty dramatic effect. Sure, people would still attempt to sneak things in, but it's a lot harder to hide a paragraph in a 20 page document then it is in a 300 page document.
Diesel (not sure on Bio-diesel) has higher NOx emissions per volume burned then pure petrol gas. But since Diesel engines are more efficient you wind up getting less total emissions per distance driven.
"And I hear there's an E95 for diesels, which has 5% gasoline in it."
Never heard of E95 for diesels. Bio-diesel can run 100% straight in a stock diesel engine with no modifications. The most common blend currently available is BD20 (20% bio-diesel). While many new GM cars and trucks can be driven on E85 with no conversion, they will experience a dramatic decrease in gas mileage and increased engine wear. Switching older cars over to E85 is possible in some cases via re jetting the carb and/or altering the fuel distribution system. Switching any Diesel engine to Bio-diesel takes no work. You can take a brand new VW Jeta tdi and a 1979 F350, dump the same bio-diesel in both and they will operate identically to how they would on gas. The only possible change is that BD100 tends to gel up a bit more in cold weather starts (one of the reasons for sticking with BD20 in the cold northern winters). No change in gas mileage, no change in power, removal of sulfur from the emissions, and carbon neutral emissions.
So yeah, ethanol might be a cheap alternative for current autos, but when your gas mileage gets cut almost in half, is it really economic or even feasible?
Making Ethanol and making BioDiesel are drasticly different processes. Ethanol is basicly wood alcohol made from distilling corn. Biodiesel is made by a chemical process of removing glycerin from vegie oil or fat.
Biodiesel production is much more efficient the Ethanol, and contains significantly more energy per volume.
Biodiesel is also more stable, not as caustic, more efficient, and less poluting in a Diesel car then Ethanol in a Petrol car.
And what's worse, a VW Golf tdi (turbo diesel) that gets 45mpg on biodiesel with emissions far below that of high efficiency gasoline cars are not elliable for the green car tax credit. I would love to see a comparison of exhast emissions mass per mile comparison between the Prius and the Golf tdi. The Prius should win in city driving, but I would bet on the Golf for highway.
Wouldn't it be nice to have a page limit too? I mean, who is going to read through a 300+ page document and agree/disagree with the whole thing? Break it into smaller chunks that can be digested by regular Americans, and voted on in a straight forward manor. Instead of this tax breaks for the rich on troop funding bills crap.
I'm glad there are at least a few senators out there like Feingold who actually take the time to look into some of these bills and to vote against them, even if it is just symbolic. At least it sheds light on the issues.
It's more of a which business are you pro for? It comes down to being an election year, voting pro-consumer will help with votes. Having non-ISP/Phone based lobiests and campaign donators will also help. The people who will vote against this are likely republicans with vested interests (either investment or campaign donations) in the Bells and cable companies.
"Because excess corn is a lousy way to make biodiesel."
Especially since you can't make BioDiesel from Corn. Corn is used to make Ethanol, and is one of the worst biomass fuels. 1) It requires nitrogen fertalizer (Soy uses nitrogen from the air). 2) It has less energy per volume then Petrol Gasoline (Soy diesel has more energy per volume). 3) Vehicles running Ethonal get worse gas milage (Diesel engines are more effiecient and longer lasting). 4) Ethanol is more corrosive then Petrol Gasoline (Soy Diesel is less corrosive then Petrol Diesel and Diesel engines are build to withstand higher compression ratios and tend to last longer). 5) Ethanol has a higher octane rating then Petrol Gas or Diesel and is more "explosive"
"Countries are plowing down rainforrests to plant palm trees to make palm oil biodiesel."
There are currently studies being done on using carbon scrubbing algies to clean up coal burning power plant emissions. These algies can be processed to produce biodiesel (at a highly efficient rate) then the remains can be fermented to produce ethanol, and the remaining crud can be used as food filler and bedding for live stock.
I dunno, maybe I'm just an odd ball, but I grew up carrying a guitar around school, all my friends played guitar, base, or drums. Even now, most of my friends are either in bands, DJs, or sound recording engineers. Even mentioning this to most of them encites reactions similar to most people when they learn about fart painting and strong desires to trash the set after the first round of the game.
"You can really get into the idea that you're "playing" the guitar"
I assure you, pressing a combination of 10 buttons on a plastic toy in no way feels even remotely close to playing a guitar.
Go buy a starter kit from a local music shop (or even walmart/target). Learn how to play Smoke on the Water and Iron Man. Then show up at a party and see who the chicks dig more, the guy who holds the record high score in Guitar Hero, or the guy who can play Glycerin on a $50 Yamaha Mexican acoustic.
I like these questions. The problem with main stream media is that it only interviews people who will incite the viewers (ie: Gets ratings). How does someone in a similar situation (educated, middle income, technology worker) to many of the readers here feel about the Middle East social-political climate and the general sterio types between the Arabs and Westerners?
I can't imagine swinging a driver in a full blown space suit is going to be easy. I would be afraid that the ball is get launched at an unexpected angle which one would think could put it into an orbit that may conflict with something else that is already out there.
I agree comepletely with you, but the point of this article is why Linux is not a mainstream consumer desktop OS. And the MP3 situation is just one example of how Windows is currently better then Linux. A Windows box, straight after install will play an MP3. A Linux box can be made to play MP3s, but there is nothing included to make it do so. What Linux needs to become mainstream is get more PC Vendors on it's side. A PC vendor can cough up the royalty fees to put an MP3 player on the box. A PC vendor can preload Open Office. A PC vendor can select hardware that has the best Linux support. Like it or not, Dell is Linux's best gateway to the consumer desktop market (and laptop too!)
Luckily, for those of us who don't want to pay a $100 Linux Tax (Since people call the alternative a MS Tax), there is the option of designing, building and supporting our own machines.
I couldn't agree with you more! But there in lies the problem, Why would your average consumer buy/install a Linux based PC if they could use their existing media collection on it? I can buy/install a Windows based box and have MP3 support. But if I install Ubuntu (one of the leaders in the consumer level Linux race), I don't have MP3 support.
Possible solutions? Have Ubuntu cough up the fee for MP3 licensing. Get the USPTO to overturn the MP3 patent. Allow software vendors to install Linux players with MP3 licensing. Improve the software download tool(the name has completely escaped me) to include functionality for non-free software.
None of these options are easy, but if you are going to preach Linux for the consumer desktop, functionality has to be easily available.
Linux has come a long ways, and I think functionality is very close to Windows environment. But as the grand parent posted, it's greatest failure is still in the driver arena. My latest venture into Linux was short lived as I had no sound, 3d graphics drivers, or wireless NIC access. And functionality or no, with out sound, graphics, and wireless net access, you'll have a hell of a time motivating people to switch.
So you're saying that Linux shouldn't be expected to become a mainstream desktop OS? Because if using Linux has the requirement of changing all of my media to "free" (do you mean as in Beer, Speech, or Anti-DRM?) standards, I'm not going there.
nDoc 1.3.1 has an XML output option. With a bit of work that could be used to populate a Wiki style website. I use nDoc with VS.Net 2002 and 2003, and I believe there is a beta version for working with VS.Net 2005. I'm not sure what other languages it support.
It's all about the Market Share. The larger the market share, the more people will take shots at you. So while security through obscurity is not truely secure, it does reduce you likelihood of being hacked.
"$400 price tag to exceed this limit, it is time to consider a Free Open Source Software alternative."
So in other words, you're not willing to pay the programmers who support their families for this product, and you are not willing to donate anything to an Open Source project.
You sir, are a leech. You want a product for free, not because of a moral issue, a desire for community support, accessible developers, or any other OS reason. No, you want an OS product because your greedy little heart wants something for free.
-Rick
A little over the top? maybe, but I've had a crappy week. I'm going to go home, get drunk, and forget the last 4 Mondays.
"To carry on your analogy though it'd be like your car only runs fuel from Esso, can only use radios from Sony and the thing can only drive on toll roads."
Ahh, but my car only runs on 87-93 octane petrol based fuel. Can only run stereos that operate off of 12v DC that fit in a 1.5u slot, and can only drive on roads (which are paid for either by toll or tax). My PC can run IIS or Apache. It can run SQL Server or Oracle. It can run IE or FireFox.
"Why can I buy a 800$ office suite and then not be able to write my own scripts to work with the files it produces?"
Uh, MS Office does allow you to write your own scripts in VBA and.Net. If you are referring to their proprietary file format, I agree, it sucks, but it is getting replaced with an open XML standard (although not the same XML standard that OO uses). And if that is one of your requirements then you should have researched your options before dropping the money. I'm not going to drop $250,000 on a Ferrari then complain that it can't go rock crawling.
"You think IE is a web browser? It's not. (technically neither is FireFox but at least it's closer and free to install or remove)...."
Where the hell have I ever posted that IE is a better web browser?!?!?! I haven't, and I don't think it is. I use FF. I enjoy FF. I check my web designs in both FF and IE to ensure they look good to the majority of users. Having IE bound into the OS does allow for some nice features though.
You are letting your hatred of MS cloud your judgement. Yes, MS has some dubious marketing techniques and MS products are not perfect, but they are providing a service that consumers demand. Look at what happened in the EU. MS was forced to offer a stripped down, no IE/MP edition... and (almost)no one bought it! Because consumers want that functionality built in. And as long as consumers have demands, some company will strive to meet them and turn a profit doing so.
Fuckity fuck fuck fuck fuckity fuck. Okay, I feel better, I needed to express my maturity.
Back to the subject at hand, MY opinion has nothing to do with this, CONSUMER'S options do.
Consumers want a machine that fulfills their needs. If the machine doesn't do so, they will look elsewhere. Yes, it is a relatively easy task to learn, but it takes time, energy, and effort, 3 things consumers aren't going to want to give any more of after dropping some decent money on a new PC.
Compare the analogy to Cars. A car comes with fluids, suspension, and a radio installed. Sure, the consumer has a choice on all of those if they want. They can use el cheap-o oil, or get full synthetic. They can use bargain basement shocks, or a set of fully adjustable coil overs. They can use a radio shack special $20 stereo, or a $5000 competition set up. But all cars come with these because the car is about worthless with out them. Except the stereo, which is an added feature that pretty much all consumers demand.
Same with a computer. Sure, you could get an OS that was just an OS. But if it requires the user to pick out a web browser, an office suite, an email client, a network system, a media player, a help viewer, a file explorer, a services manager, and all of the other handy tools that come bundled, user's would look else wheres. Sure, you could force Microsoft to stop bundling, but companies like Dell would increase their bundling to meet the needs and demands of consumers.
Take off your anti-(fill in the blank) rhetoric hat and put on your consumer hat. Imagine you didn't live in your mother's basement. Imagine you have a job, a house, and a family to take care of. Do you want to spend a few weeks of your precious spare time to learn how to install and configure an email client? Or do you want to be able to just check your email?
Slashdot Mirror
I recently had an oppertunity to develop a .Net app for a Pocket PC. One of my primary design and layout considerations was to make the buttons thumbable. With larger buttons and small dead space between them, you lose a lot of screen space, but the app can then be used with out a stylus making it significantly easier to get around in.
-Rick
"There will always be a few people trying to hide stuff. Simple technical fixes such as page limits would by themselves not help much. More helpful is a continuing commitment to keep things simple, stop trying to abuse every loophole to the max, and most of all not to praise and reward people who made their fortunes by hoodwinking the system through byzantine manueverings."
I disagree. For over two hundred years the US has had elections in which campaigners pledged reform, responsibility and ethics. Where has it gotten us? Not far. True, it would be great if everyone suddenly began operating ethically, but in all reality, it's not going to happen. Especially when $9 billion in tax cuts are on the line. A Minor technical limit that reduces confusion on the floor and helps reduce the amount of pork projects, piggy backing, and corruption would have a pretty dramatic effect. Sure, people would still attempt to sneak things in, but it's a lot harder to hide a paragraph in a 20 page document then it is in a 300 page document.
-Rick
"Bio-diesel has significant NOx emissions"
Diesel (not sure on Bio-diesel) has higher NOx emissions per volume burned then pure petrol gas. But since Diesel engines are more efficient you wind up getting less total emissions per distance driven.
"And I hear there's an E95 for diesels, which has 5% gasoline in it."
Never heard of E95 for diesels. Bio-diesel can run 100% straight in a stock diesel engine with no modifications. The most common blend currently available is BD20 (20% bio-diesel). While many new GM cars and trucks can be driven on E85 with no conversion, they will experience a dramatic decrease in gas mileage and increased engine wear. Switching older cars over to E85 is possible in some cases via re jetting the carb and/or altering the fuel distribution system. Switching any Diesel engine to Bio-diesel takes no work. You can take a brand new VW Jeta tdi and a 1979 F350, dump the same bio-diesel in both and they will operate identically to how they would on gas. The only possible change is that BD100 tends to gel up a bit more in cold weather starts (one of the reasons for sticking with BD20 in the cold northern winters). No change in gas mileage, no change in power, removal of sulfur from the emissions, and carbon neutral emissions.
So yeah, ethanol might be a cheap alternative for current autos, but when your gas mileage gets cut almost in half, is it really economic or even feasible?
-Rick
Making Ethanol and making BioDiesel are drasticly different processes. Ethanol is basicly wood alcohol made from distilling corn. Biodiesel is made by a chemical process of removing glycerin from vegie oil or fat.
Biodiesel production is much more efficient the Ethanol, and contains significantly more energy per volume.
Biodiesel is also more stable, not as caustic, more efficient, and less poluting in a Diesel car then Ethanol in a Petrol car.
-Rick
And what's worse, a VW Golf tdi (turbo diesel) that gets 45mpg on biodiesel with emissions far below that of high efficiency gasoline cars are not elliable for the green car tax credit. I would love to see a comparison of exhast emissions mass per mile comparison between the Prius and the Golf tdi. The Prius should win in city driving, but I would bet on the Golf for highway.
-Rick
Wouldn't it be nice to have a page limit too? I mean, who is going to read through a 300+ page document and agree/disagree with the whole thing? Break it into smaller chunks that can be digested by regular Americans, and voted on in a straight forward manor. Instead of this tax breaks for the rich on troop funding bills crap.
I'm glad there are at least a few senators out there like Feingold who actually take the time to look into some of these bills and to vote against them, even if it is just symbolic. At least it sheds light on the issues.
-Rick
Aww, come on! Someone has to make the Lawyers and /. Advertisers rich!
-Rick
It's more of a which business are you pro for? It comes down to being an election year, voting pro-consumer will help with votes. Having non-ISP/Phone based lobiests and campaign donators will also help. The people who will vote against this are likely republicans with vested interests (either investment or campaign donations) in the Bells and cable companies.
-Rick
"Because excess corn is a lousy way to make biodiesel."
Especially since you can't make BioDiesel from Corn. Corn is used to make Ethanol, and is one of the worst biomass fuels. 1) It requires nitrogen fertalizer (Soy uses nitrogen from the air). 2) It has less energy per volume then Petrol Gasoline (Soy diesel has more energy per volume). 3) Vehicles running Ethonal get worse gas milage (Diesel engines are more effiecient and longer lasting). 4) Ethanol is more corrosive then Petrol Gasoline (Soy Diesel is less corrosive then Petrol Diesel and Diesel engines are build to withstand higher compression ratios and tend to last longer). 5) Ethanol has a higher octane rating then Petrol Gas or Diesel and is more "explosive"
"Countries are plowing down rainforrests to plant palm trees to make palm oil biodiesel."
There are currently studies being done on using carbon scrubbing algies to clean up coal burning power plant emissions. These algies can be processed to produce biodiesel (at a highly efficient rate) then the remains can be fermented to produce ethanol, and the remaining crud can be used as food filler and bedding for live stock.
-Rick
I dunno, maybe I'm just an odd ball, but I grew up carrying a guitar around school, all my friends played guitar, base, or drums. Even now, most of my friends are either in bands, DJs, or sound recording engineers. Even mentioning this to most of them encites reactions similar to most people when they learn about fart painting and strong desires to trash the set after the first round of the game.
-Rick
"You can really get into the idea that you're "playing" the guitar"
I assure you, pressing a combination of 10 buttons on a plastic toy in no way feels even remotely close to playing a guitar.
Go buy a starter kit from a local music shop (or even walmart/target). Learn how to play Smoke on the Water and Iron Man. Then show up at a party and see who the chicks dig more, the guy who holds the record high score in Guitar Hero, or the guy who can play Glycerin on a $50 Yamaha Mexican acoustic.
-Rick
You got to be kidding me, of all the weak ass gimmick games available, that thing is a Wall Mart special from the wholly craptastic department.
-Rick
I like these questions. The problem with main stream media is that it only interviews people who will incite the viewers (ie: Gets ratings). How does someone in a similar situation (educated, middle income, technology worker) to many of the readers here feel about the Middle East social-political climate and the general sterio types between the Arabs and Westerners?
-Rick
I can't imagine swinging a driver in a full blown space suit is going to be easy. I would be afraid that the ball is get launched at an unexpected angle which one would think could put it into an orbit that may conflict with something else that is already out there.
-Rick
I agree comepletely with you, but the point of this article is why Linux is not a mainstream consumer desktop OS. And the MP3 situation is just one example of how Windows is currently better then Linux. A Windows box, straight after install will play an MP3. A Linux box can be made to play MP3s, but there is nothing included to make it do so. What Linux needs to become mainstream is get more PC Vendors on it's side. A PC vendor can cough up the royalty fees to put an MP3 player on the box. A PC vendor can preload Open Office. A PC vendor can select hardware that has the best Linux support. Like it or not, Dell is Linux's best gateway to the consumer desktop market (and laptop too!)
Luckily, for those of us who don't want to pay a $100 Linux Tax (Since people call the alternative a MS Tax), there is the option of designing, building and supporting our own machines.
-Rick
I couldn't agree with you more! But there in lies the problem, Why would your average consumer buy/install a Linux based PC if they could use their existing media collection on it? I can buy/install a Windows based box and have MP3 support. But if I install Ubuntu (one of the leaders in the consumer level Linux race), I don't have MP3 support.
Possible solutions? Have Ubuntu cough up the fee for MP3 licensing. Get the USPTO to overturn the MP3 patent. Allow software vendors to install Linux players with MP3 licensing. Improve the software download tool(the name has completely escaped me) to include functionality for non-free software.
None of these options are easy, but if you are going to preach Linux for the consumer desktop, functionality has to be easily available.
Linux has come a long ways, and I think functionality is very close to Windows environment. But as the grand parent posted, it's greatest failure is still in the driver arena. My latest venture into Linux was short lived as I had no sound, 3d graphics drivers, or wireless NIC access. And functionality or no, with out sound, graphics, and wireless net access, you'll have a hell of a time motivating people to switch.
-Rick
So you're saying that Linux shouldn't be expected to become a mainstream desktop OS? Because if using Linux has the requirement of changing all of my media to "free" (do you mean as in Beer, Speech, or Anti-DRM?) standards, I'm not going there.
-Rick
nDoc 1.3.1 has an XML output option. With a bit of work that could be used to populate a Wiki style website. I use nDoc with VS.Net 2002 and 2003, and I believe there is a beta version for working with VS.Net 2005. I'm not sure what other languages it support.
-Rick
It's all about the Market Share. The larger the market share, the more people will take shots at you. So while security through obscurity is not truely secure, it does reduce you likelihood of being hacked.
-Rick
"God, I hope you took double shots!"
Workin on it.
"We couldn't possibly fit all the users of every product into it's developer base, anyway. You'd spend 90% of the release cycle answering emails."
Imagine having 90% of your users donate: Code, Money, Hosting, and/or Bug Reports. Wouldn't that be a dream!
-Rick
about the whole open source movement.
"$400 price tag to exceed this limit, it is time to consider a Free Open Source Software alternative."
So in other words, you're not willing to pay the programmers who support their families for this product, and you are not willing to donate anything to an Open Source project.
You sir, are a leech. You want a product for free, not because of a moral issue, a desire for community support, accessible developers, or any other OS reason. No, you want an OS product because your greedy little heart wants something for free.
-Rick
A little over the top? maybe, but I've had a crappy week. I'm going to go home, get drunk, and forget the last 4 Mondays.
"To carry on your analogy though it'd be like your car only runs fuel from Esso, can only use radios from Sony and the thing can only drive on toll roads."
.Net. If you are referring to their proprietary file format, I agree, it sucks, but it is getting replaced with an open XML standard (although not the same XML standard that OO uses). And if that is one of your requirements then you should have researched your options before dropping the money. I'm not going to drop $250,000 on a Ferrari then complain that it can't go rock crawling.
..."
Ahh, but my car only runs on 87-93 octane petrol based fuel. Can only run stereos that operate off of 12v DC that fit in a 1.5u slot, and can only drive on roads (which are paid for either by toll or tax). My PC can run IIS or Apache. It can run SQL Server or Oracle. It can run IE or FireFox.
"Why can I buy a 800$ office suite and then not be able to write my own scripts to work with the files it produces?"
Uh, MS Office does allow you to write your own scripts in VBA and
"You think IE is a web browser? It's not. (technically neither is FireFox but at least it's closer and free to install or remove).
Where the hell have I ever posted that IE is a better web browser?!?!?! I haven't, and I don't think it is. I use FF. I enjoy FF. I check my web designs in both FF and IE to ensure they look good to the majority of users. Having IE bound into the OS does allow for some nice features though.
You are letting your hatred of MS cloud your judgement. Yes, MS has some dubious marketing techniques and MS products are not perfect, but they are providing a service that consumers demand. Look at what happened in the EU. MS was forced to offer a stripped down, no IE/MP edition... and (almost)no one bought it! Because consumers want that functionality built in. And as long as consumers have demands, some company will strive to meet them and turn a profit doing so.
-Rick
Fuckity fuck fuck fuck fuckity fuck. Okay, I feel better, I needed to express my maturity.
Back to the subject at hand, MY opinion has nothing to do with this, CONSUMER'S options do.
Consumers want a machine that fulfills their needs. If the machine doesn't do so, they will look elsewhere. Yes, it is a relatively easy task to learn, but it takes time, energy, and effort, 3 things consumers aren't going to want to give any more of after dropping some decent money on a new PC.
Compare the analogy to Cars. A car comes with fluids, suspension, and a radio installed. Sure, the consumer has a choice on all of those if they want. They can use el cheap-o oil, or get full synthetic. They can use bargain basement shocks, or a set of fully adjustable coil overs. They can use a radio shack special $20 stereo, or a $5000 competition set up. But all cars come with these because the car is about worthless with out them. Except the stereo, which is an added feature that pretty much all consumers demand.
Same with a computer. Sure, you could get an OS that was just an OS. But if it requires the user to pick out a web browser, an office suite, an email client, a network system, a media player, a help viewer, a file explorer, a services manager, and all of the other handy tools that come bundled, user's would look else wheres. Sure, you could force Microsoft to stop bundling, but companies like Dell would increase their bundling to meet the needs and demands of consumers.
Take off your anti-(fill in the blank) rhetoric hat and put on your consumer hat. Imagine you didn't live in your mother's basement. Imagine you have a job, a house, and a family to take care of. Do you want to spend a few weeks of your precious spare time to learn how to install and configure an email client? Or do you want to be able to just check your email?
-Rick
"So fuck the older gen. "
Great business plan there, I can see why you are so much more successful then Bill Gates.
-Rick
"how many people will buy a new television just for the latest version of the Madden football game."
Two of my coworkers have the XBox 360 and HD TV's and both have called the game a waste of money.
-Rick