I avoided killing someone because my car at that time did *not* have antilock brakes. The driver pulled out in front of me far too late, and stalled across the middle of both lanes with no shoulder. I was able to throw my car into a skid by locking the brakes down hard. The momentum of my back-end carried it around, and helped me to pull the car over the right by about two feet. This let me hit her back door instead of front at about 40mph. With or without ABS there was no way I was going to stop in time -- but not having ABS bought me that little bit of extra distance from the sideways motion of the skid , which let me aim my car somewhere other than directly at her.
Intellectually I know that ABS is a Good Thing, but it took me years after that incident to get a car that had them. (And so far, they've not come in handy... but that's more a matter of paying attention to the road and people, and knowing when the gas pedal is a better solution than the brakes.)
The problem is that it may be too late for the useful errors - users are now so well trained to dismiss them without comprehending them that they may not be retrainable. I do agree though - far too often an error is either misleading, or simply wasting the user's time telling them something they can not correct in the first place.
"Transaction error: data could not be saved. Please try again later. [OK]" - Seems pretty good, hm? No, it is terrible, because it fails to answer the essential questions: where is the problem? is someone working on it? how long does it take? how should I continue?
Even more: THe last one is most important. Do I have to do my work again? Do I need to call someone? What do I tell the customer waiting on the phone?
More and more, I am coming to think that applications reporting system errors to users -- especially without instruction or hint of what to do next -- are examples of design failures. If the user can't correct it, you shouldn't be telling them about it.
angry tapir writes with news that Google Go seems to be cutting a wide swath through the programming community
He may write that, but that's not what the article says:
While Go is still a work in progress, some developers are so encouraged by its features and design that they have started using it to build noncritical application
What experiences, good or bad, have you had with Google Go, and how likely is it to really take over?
Um, take over what? Is this a serious question? The answer here is "never" -- for the same reason that no single language will ever "take over" the software development landscape. There is no one tool fit for every job.
Users want to keep doing whatever it is they are trying to do. If an unexpected popup displays, they click through it as quickly as possible. This isn't out of malice, but simply because they want to get their task finished. The quickest way to get it finished is to get this annoying message out of the way.
When you accept that, you actually open up a few more options.
What is your message really saying? If it's more than a sentence, you're doing it wrong. Convey the point in as little text as possible, as clearly as possible - don't say "error code 10" because they won't remember it. Say "printer offline". Make the phrasing of different messages far enough separated so that even when someone tells you that they received a message like "printer purple monkey dishwasher", you still know what it means.
Use non-modal overlay notifications like firefox does to tell you that something wants to be installed. They stay there until the user actually sees them but they don't get in the way.
Is the error serious? Why aren't you capturing it systematically and submitting to a central destination?
Should the error block the user from proceeding? If it's that serious why don't you shut down the application? If it's not that serious, re-think it, which leads into...
Do you have too many errors to capture systematically? Then why are you displaying all of them? Does the user really need to know about them?
That last point is key. Do not waste the user's time telling them something they don't need to care about. We have only ourselves to blame - for years we have been thrusting annoying, pointless, and confusing messages into the generations of software developers popping annoying messages into the user's face -- effectively training them to ignore the messages. Many of those messages are things that users do not need to know or care about - so don't slow them down with the information.
Finally, keep in mind that users aren't necessarily looking at the screen. I can't count how many times I''ve seen people staring at their keyboards and continue typing blithely while a message is displayed and input is being ignored. Usually this leads to one of two things: a) user sees their typing is lost, gets annoyed, and clicks through the stupid message preventing them for working, or b) user hits the Enter or space key in the course of their typing, and dismisses the message without ever realizing it was there.
That will work the first time - and usually for only one user. They have a nasty tendency to talk amongst themselves. What usually happens is someone's walking by a desk, and sees un-clearable error ID10T displayed. The pop their head into the cube and say, "Oh, don't worry about that, I get it all the time. The helpdesk guy told me how to clear it - here, look..."
is whole argument is predicated on his incorrect assumption that the game saves are solely online
Actually that's only part of it.
In fact, the game itself uses only your local saves, and the online saves are merely a backup.
Even if true, this ignores that fact that aspects of the game *will* exist only online - and without them, play is not possible. This is shown clearly by the article posted a week or two ago, where a tester found that within seconds of getting disconnected, he was unable to conitnue playing. Unless this is all a trick and it really just tests for an available connection without sending or receiving any data, this will be a tough one to beat.
It may get cracked for a short time - but with this system all that it will ever require is a simple weekly update that shifts the specifics of what data is sent to and from the server,and where it's sent. The crackers will not be able to keep up with - by the time their crack gets completed and distributed, the next minor version is released.
Good or ill, they've found their way towards the first DRM that will be effective. It will get refined over time, and subsequent versions wil be more so -- assuming this doesn't completely kill sales. But a close look at the sales of Spore - which had draconian DRM that was made a focal point of the release -- gives scant hope of that.
The simple truth is that most people really don't care. This case is different because it will interrupt gameplay -- but I suspect it's not so different that it will stop any significant number of people from buying it.
Yeah, youtube wouldn't stop bitching about me using an older version of firefox (to escape the craptastic "awesome bar") on every. single. fucking. page.
I finally had to resort to changing the general.useragent.extra.firefox to 3.6.
don't forget this line, it's the best one of all - emphasis added.
After publishing a particularly alarming set of findings – which I still stand behind while continuing to evaluate new data – the internet became engulfed in controversy
An over-inflated sense of self-importance, or a woeful ignorance of the scope of the interwebs. Then again, maybe we're just jealous because we haven't made a enough to make sure that "we never have to work again". Yes, I'm sure that's it... disregard my post, it was just my envy speaking.
Your comments demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding of 32bit v 64bit memory management. Your high uid strongly hints (though does not confirm) that you may still be in high school Still, this lack of knowledge before posting is not excusable. Go do a bit of research, come back, and correct your post - that is your homework for tonight.
It seems like he has a reasonably technical background. What has he found that cannot be explained by SuperFetch (high memory usage) and Native Command Queuing (backlogged disk I/O queue)? Those were the two big percentage differences and apparently explainable if not desirable for the average user.
There's one point I keep raising and haven't seen an answer to. Win7 will use the page file to swap out running applications in favor of cache/superfetch. I see it regularly when I don't use an app for a while but leave it running; or minimize it to the task bar -- and have confirmed it with perfmon. So while technically it can be "explained" as a result of SuperFetch and caching, that doesn't invalidate the point that Windows is using memory to the exclusion of applications. Presumably it is trying to do this in a smart way, but there's no question that it's doing it.
Yeah, it's not like anybody has done this or anything. I'm sure that *this* time, it will completely revolutionize gaming. And somehow install the desire for hordes of consumers to want to play graphically intense 3d games from their web browser...
You're absolutely right. Except - Apple isn't a monopoly. You have a healthy environment with plenty of choices. If you don't like Apple's policy, you are 100% free to go to with a competitor's product -- one that doesn't require you to sign away control of your device.
What is it with smartphone dev kits that are based on Eclipse? Just ONCE I want one built for a *real* IDE like NetBeans...;)
Anyway, thanks for the info -- I may give it another shot (if I can make it work with netbeans, anyway... eclipse makes me itch... ) after my current BB project.
Something like this happened to my mother once, though they used cameras to record the bank card's number and PIN, as she entered it. Then made $500 worth of withdrawals, in $1 increments.
Hell, if they're as slow as most people are at the ATM, that would've worked out to about $8/hr. At that rate, they might do better with honest work!
Sounds like a reasonable way to approach it. Newer blackberries default to using AppWorld, but you can also browse to any JAD file and install any app directly over the air. BB will complain a bit about security of unsigned apps, but you can generally set that up once per app and forget about it.
My only complaint about Android is that it has no support for MIDP/CLDC, which are widely accepted standards. Even though almost every platform has an API specific to that platform, they also support MIDP - that lack puts Android in the same category as iPhone, in that there are huge quantities of already-written apps that are simply unavailable to people.
And of course win mobile devices are fairly open, I forget them. (Though I'm not sure if that applies for WinMo 7 or not?)
Why isn't JAVA (or some JAVA-like byte code embedded language) being used to address this- wasn't that the point of JAVA? I am not a CS guy, so maybe somebody can clue me in.
JP
Even though the byte-code is compatible across devices, the features invoked by that byte code may or may not be present for a given device; or a given OS version.
Perhaps I'm confused, but how are Windows phones locked down? I can download any Windows Mobile application and install it on my phone...there is a little warning that pops up if it is "unsigned", but all you have to do is hit ok or yes and it installs...there is nothing preventing you from installing whatever you want on there.
Are you just referring to Windows Phone 7...?
This is slashdot. We don't need to substantiate our opinions. If we state them firmly enough, they will be accepted as fact. This is confirmed by the up-mods that ensue, further validating that we are, in fact, correct -- and that evidence/corroboration is a superfluous waste of time.
. It's sure a good thing for those worried parents that they don't have any kind of web browser on there. On the internet, you're never more than one click away from something horrible."
Well, yeah. That's kind of the point. The things they can't control, they're making no attempt to control. However, they *can* control the contents of the store - and so they do, in order to appeal to their largest customer base. Time will tell if it's the right move; but you can't cry censorship when you agree to purchase a device whose sole gateway to applications is what is officially sanctioned by that device's creator. You sign away the right to control your user experience when you agree that they have control via the appstore. If you don't like it, don't buy the device until they change it; or buy it and jailbreak it (but be aware of the consequences as well).
Apple is fully within their rights to decide they want the appstore to sell ONLY applications designed for people age 8 and under. You know it when you buy the device (and if you don't, isn't that your responsibility too? being educated about your purchases?). App developers agree to it when they obtain the license that allow them to develop for the devices. You always have the choice to go with a different product. (Such as blackberry... no restrictions on what you can install, tens of thousands of compatible j2me apps. They have an appworld that's growing daily, but you're not required to use it to install software. I believe Android fits this bill too? )
A company that is exercising the rights that its customers and developers willingly cede to it is not censorship.
Thanks for the references - and indeed, I still haven't had a chance to find my caffeine for the day. (My caffeine stream is dangerously close to allowing some blood in.)
I'm not concerned so much about the "disrespectful" aspect -- taking it off of the international evening news broadcasts covered that to a more-than-reasonable extent. But where I'm running into issue is the monetization of it - specifically, posting it to a site which would increase ad impressions.
Given that there was legitimate criticism being raised, and that overall it fit into usage exemption category you posted -- that doesn't seem to take into account the fact that a third party is going to profit from the increased number of hits and ad revenue as a result of posting content that they don't own the rights to. I don't dispute that they have the right to post it - but there's no provision in the law for when that line of "newsworthy" crosses into "revenue-driving".
From a moral perspective, I would say it depends on intent. His site had ads anyway, and he just posted controversial, news-worthy content with commentary. This could have been innocent, or it could been done with the foreknowledge that posting this specific content would drive up ad impressions.
Slashdot Mirror
Intellectually I know that ABS is a Good Thing, but it took me years after that incident to get a car that had them. (And so far, they've not come in handy... but that's more a matter of paying attention to the road and people, and knowing when the gas pedal is a better solution than the brakes.)
"Transaction error: data could not be saved. Please try again later. [OK]" - Seems pretty good, hm? No, it is terrible, because it fails to answer the essential questions: where is the problem? is someone working on it? how long does it take? how should I continue?
Even more: THe last one is most important. Do I have to do my work again? Do I need to call someone? What do I tell the customer waiting on the phone?
More and more, I am coming to think that applications reporting system errors to users -- especially without instruction or hint of what to do next -- are examples of design failures. If the user can't correct it, you shouldn't be telling them about it.
There is no one tool fit for every job.
Sure there is. It's a computer. Everything else is implementation details.
There is no one tool fit for every job.
Come to think of it, I spoke too hastily. Obviously duct tape and mechanics wire (if considered as a single tool) are more than adequate for any task.
angry tapir writes with news that Google Go seems to be cutting a wide swath through the programming community
He may write that, but that's not what the article says:
While Go is still a work in progress, some developers are so encouraged by its features and design that they have started using it to build noncritical application
What experiences, good or bad, have you had with Google Go, and how likely is it to really take over?
Um, take over what? Is this a serious question? The answer here is "never" -- for the same reason that no single language will ever "take over" the software development landscape. There is no one tool fit for every job.
When you accept that, you actually open up a few more options.
That last point is key. Do not waste the user's time telling them something they don't need to care about. We have only ourselves to blame - for years we have been thrusting annoying, pointless, and confusing messages into the generations of software developers popping annoying messages into the user's face -- effectively training them to ignore the messages. Many of those messages are things that users do not need to know or care about - so don't slow them down with the information.
Finally, keep in mind that users aren't necessarily looking at the screen. I can't count how many times I''ve seen people staring at their keyboards and continue typing blithely while a message is displayed and input is being ignored. Usually this leads to one of two things: a) user sees their typing is lost, gets annoyed, and clicks through the stupid message preventing them for working, or b) user hits the Enter or space key in the course of their typing, and dismisses the message without ever realizing it was there.
That will work the first time - and usually for only one user. They have a nasty tendency to talk amongst themselves. What usually happens is someone's walking by a desk, and sees un-clearable error ID10T displayed. The pop their head into the cube and say, "Oh, don't worry about that, I get it all the time. The helpdesk guy told me how to clear it - here, look..."
To understand recursion, you must first understand a hall of mirrios.
But what if you took a picture and sold them for 40 cents each. (Or however much stamps cost these days.)
is whole argument is predicated on his incorrect assumption that the game saves are solely online
Actually that's only part of it.
In fact, the game itself uses only your local saves, and the online saves are merely a backup.
Even if true, this ignores that fact that aspects of the game *will* exist only online - and without them, play is not possible. This is shown clearly by the article posted a week or two ago, where a tester found that within seconds of getting disconnected, he was unable to conitnue playing. Unless this is all a trick and it really just tests for an available connection without sending or receiving any data, this will be a tough one to beat.
It may get cracked for a short time - but with this system all that it will ever require is a simple weekly update that shifts the specifics of what data is sent to and from the server,and where it's sent. The crackers will not be able to keep up with - by the time their crack gets completed and distributed, the next minor version is released.
Good or ill, they've found their way towards the first DRM that will be effective. It will get refined over time, and subsequent versions wil be more so -- assuming this doesn't completely kill sales. But a close look at the sales of Spore - which had draconian DRM that was made a focal point of the release -- gives scant hope of that.
The simple truth is that most people really don't care. This case is different because it will interrupt gameplay -- but I suspect it's not so different that it will stop any significant number of people from buying it.
How does that improve your coding skills?
Priorities, man!
You get to learn how garbage collection works?
Yeah, youtube wouldn't stop bitching about me using an older version of firefox (to escape the craptastic "awesome bar") on every. single. fucking. page. I finally had to resort to changing the general.useragent.extra.firefox to 3.6.
There are better options.
After publishing a particularly alarming set of findings – which I still stand behind while continuing to evaluate new data – the internet became engulfed in controversy
An over-inflated sense of self-importance, or a woeful ignorance of the scope of the interwebs. Then again, maybe we're just jealous because we haven't made a enough to make sure that "we never have to work again". Yes, I'm sure that's it... disregard my post, it was just my envy speaking.
Your comments demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding of 32bit v 64bit memory management. Your high uid strongly hints (though does not confirm) that you may still be in high school Still, this lack of knowledge before posting is not excusable. Go do a bit of research, come back, and correct your post - that is your homework for tonight.
It seems like he has a reasonably technical background. What has he found that cannot be explained by SuperFetch (high memory usage) and Native Command Queuing (backlogged disk I/O queue)? Those were the two big percentage differences and apparently explainable if not desirable for the average user.
There's one point I keep raising and haven't seen an answer to. Win7 will use the page file to swap out running applications in favor of cache/superfetch. I see it regularly when I don't use an app for a while but leave it running; or minimize it to the task bar -- and have confirmed it with perfmon. So while technically it can be "explained" as a result of SuperFetch and caching, that doesn't invalidate the point that Windows is using memory to the exclusion of applications. Presumably it is trying to do this in a smart way, but there's no question that it's doing it.
Yeah, it's not like anybody has done this or anything. I'm sure that *this* time, it will completely revolutionize gaming. And somehow install the desire for hordes of consumers to want to play graphically intense 3d games from their web browser...
Once again I am sure that I am not the only one who misread this: "Google Italy Executes Convicted Over YouTube Bullying Videos"
You're absolutely right. Except - Apple isn't a monopoly. You have a healthy environment with plenty of choices. If you don't like Apple's policy, you are 100% free to go to with a competitor's product -- one that doesn't require you to sign away control of your device.
Anyway, thanks for the info -- I may give it another shot (if I can make it work with netbeans, anyway... eclipse makes me itch... ) after my current BB project.
Something like this happened to my mother once, though they used cameras to record the bank card's number and PIN, as she entered it. Then made $500 worth of withdrawals, in $1 increments.
Hell, if they're as slow as most people are at the ATM, that would've worked out to about $8/hr. At that rate, they might do better with honest work!
My only complaint about Android is that it has no support for MIDP/CLDC, which are widely accepted standards. Even though almost every platform has an API specific to that platform, they also support MIDP - that lack puts Android in the same category as iPhone, in that there are huge quantities of already-written apps that are simply unavailable to people.
And of course win mobile devices are fairly open, I forget them. (Though I'm not sure if that applies for WinMo 7 or not?)
Why isn't JAVA (or some JAVA-like byte code embedded language) being used to address this- wasn't that the point of JAVA? I am not a CS guy, so maybe somebody can clue me in. JP
Even though the byte-code is compatible across devices, the features invoked by that byte code may or may not be present for a given device; or a given OS version.
Perhaps I'm confused, but how are Windows phones locked down? I can download any Windows Mobile application and install it on my phone...there is a little warning that pops up if it is "unsigned", but all you have to do is hit ok or yes and it installs...there is nothing preventing you from installing whatever you want on there.
Are you just referring to Windows Phone 7...?
This is slashdot. We don't need to substantiate our opinions. If we state them firmly enough, they will be accepted as fact. This is confirmed by the up-mods that ensue, further validating that we are, in fact, correct -- and that evidence/corroboration is a superfluous waste of time.
. It's sure a good thing for those worried parents that they don't have any kind of web browser on there. On the internet, you're never more than one click away from something horrible."
Well, yeah. That's kind of the point. The things they can't control, they're making no attempt to control. However, they *can* control the contents of the store - and so they do, in order to appeal to their largest customer base. Time will tell if it's the right move; but you can't cry censorship when you agree to purchase a device whose sole gateway to applications is what is officially sanctioned by that device's creator. You sign away the right to control your user experience when you agree that they have control via the appstore. If you don't like it, don't buy the device until they change it; or buy it and jailbreak it (but be aware of the consequences as well).
Apple is fully within their rights to decide they want the appstore to sell ONLY applications designed for people age 8 and under. You know it when you buy the device (and if you don't, isn't that your responsibility too? being educated about your purchases?). App developers agree to it when they obtain the license that allow them to develop for the devices. You always have the choice to go with a different product. (Such as blackberry... no restrictions on what you can install, tens of thousands of compatible j2me apps. They have an appworld that's growing daily, but you're not required to use it to install software. I believe Android fits this bill too? )
A company that is exercising the rights that its customers and developers willingly cede to it is not censorship.
Commence downmodding.
I'm not concerned so much about the "disrespectful" aspect -- taking it off of the international evening news broadcasts covered that to a more-than-reasonable extent. But where I'm running into issue is the monetization of it - specifically, posting it to a site which would increase ad impressions.
Given that there was legitimate criticism being raised, and that overall it fit into usage exemption category you posted -- that doesn't seem to take into account the fact that a third party is going to profit from the increased number of hits and ad revenue as a result of posting content that they don't own the rights to. I don't dispute that they have the right to post it - but there's no provision in the law for when that line of "newsworthy" crosses into "revenue-driving".
From a moral perspective, I would say it depends on intent. His site had ads anyway, and he just posted controversial, news-worthy content with commentary. This could have been innocent, or it could been done with the foreknowledge that posting this specific content would drive up ad impressions.
"This is akin to 3,727 attempts to pick the lock of a secure office and take highly confidential documents..."
Clearly, if an office is making 4k hits trying to guess a single URL, it must be hacking! But wait, there's more...
Mr Campbell says there were about 3,727 unauthorised hits on the website, some of them from a computer belonging to a "Sydney media organisation".
Erm, that is to say, clearly if an undisclosed subset of 4k hits come from a newspaper office, then it must, uh, be a hacking attempt.
Right-o. Carry on then.