Actually, the understanding of historical concepts and trends evolves quite a bit.
"Evolves" is the right word, too; it doesn't imply improvement, just changing to fit the times. Is it really possible to write a better history of Rome than was written by its contemporaries? Or do we just consider ourselves more enlightened? Sure, we've seen where a lot of the trends were headed, but surely we've lost a lot of context for understanding the events.
Who knows? The fact that history textbooks keep changing is telling. Are we getting better evidence about history all the time? Maybe. But I think mostly our perceptions of life - and therefore history - keep changing. So we rewrite the books, but they may not be more correct, just more contemporary.
Our history books will be scoffed at by the historians of future generations, too.
True, and I cheer every time I see one of those stories. But I guarantee they're doing a cost/benefit analysis: the cost of supporting IE6 vs the revenue from those customers. They don't turn them away out of some nerd rage principle like the OP seemed to advocate.
I agree. To me, digital music won't be a satisfactory replacement for physical albums** until I get artwork and lyrics (preferably synced to the music to be displayed when desired) with it.
I don't trust the competence or good will of the record companies to do this right, though, and a.zip file with music,.png and.pdf files is almost good enough. I'd rather have that than some inscrutable proprietary format.
**Even then, I like having the physical album as a backup. To heck with re-buying music over and over to be able to play it on different devices.
If it loads, fine, if not, tough. If/when someone complains, just tell that individual that the page renders perfectly in any standards compliant browser, and that they should get one.
Customer: Why can't I use your shopping site? Designer: You have a crap browser. Customer: You have a crap site. I'm going to your competitor. Designer: Victory!
(2 weeks later) Designer: Would you like fries with that?
I wonder how this affects lag? Sure, a bullet will get to the wall pretty quickly, but in some games, there is basically zero lag between firing and hitting the enemy. Here you fire, the bullet hits, the computer calculates, and then the avatar shoots, right?
This isn't malicious. It's just that Macs are more expensive than Windows.
If you search for "why is Windows expensive," you should get results showing pages that contain that text or something similar. Whether or not Windows is actually expensive is beside the point.
A search engine is there to show you pages that resemble what you typed. It is not there to argue with you, even if you're wrong. You can search Google for "why Obama is a cat" and it will at least try to find pages that resemble your query.
I guess most browsers allow add-ins, but some don't. That's the only one I can think of off the top of my head.
Well that's a pretty big one, don't you think? Considering that the whole point of add-ons is to add features. And that Firefox, for example, has thousands of add-ons.
Frankly, I think it's silly to have to argue that different browsers have different functionality. Google it.
Government sticking its filthy nose in business is *never* a good thing. Whether it involves the web or not is irrelevant.
So you favor a country where companies can pay pennies for hazardous jobs, lie about food ingredients, sell toasters that burn your house down and cars that explode on impact, spam and telemarket freely, advertise cigarettes on Saturday morning cartoons, etc? Or maybe you didn't mean *never*.
So? 99% of the people who buy cars use the steering wheel that comes with the car. Of course an aftermarket exists for steering wheels, but you don't see the car dealership presenting you with a long list of possible steering wheels for your car purchase when you buy it. And somehow nobody has any problem with this.
Wow. That is a terrible car analogy.
First, it's impractical to offer you a choice of steering wheels. It's easy to offer a choice of browsers - and browser have functional, non-cosmetic differences.
Second, your steering wheel choice affects nobody but you (unless it's so bad you can't steer). Having everyone on IE makes the whole internet subject to Microsoft's decisions instead of web standards, and costs tons of developer time. It also gives Microsoft the advantage in promoting their development platforms and tools. After all, if everyone uses Windows and IE, why not use Windows Server and IIS and.NET and Silverlight and ActiveX and blink tags? Even a free browser can steer people back towards Microsoft products.
Take a look at how slowly the web developed while IE was a monolith, and how fast it's developing with a lot of browser competition. In a couple of years you'll be playing FPS games in your browser, dragging and dropping files in and out, playing games that don't depend on any plugins, and more. All thanks to IE losing market share.
Even if you feel like MS is being meddled with, it seems pretty clear that it's going to create more competition and be a good thing for the web.
Do you not get the point that by running in a browser, it essentially runs anywhere? Linux, Mac, Windows, future smartphones and MIDS.
Yes! And some day, when all apps are in the cloud, it won't matter in the slightest which OS you use, as long as you have a browser! Your company will let you use whichever one you want!
Then, finally, my fellow nerds, it will be The Year of Linux On the Desktop. (For you. Not that it will matter.)
I know squat about this subject, but it does seem that they have some luxuries that the BlackBerry battery doesn't have. For example, it's no problem if the car battery becomes hot to the touch while charging.
A nice wish list, but most of it has nothing to do with the problem they're trying to solve: making electric vehicles as practical as gas-burning ones are today.
#1-3 could be solved by cars that drive themselves. #4 would involve a shift toward car-sharing or public transportation.
#5 and #6 are valid requirements that amount to the same thing: it should be cheap enough to win in the market. But I think it's reasonable to make it work, first, then worry about making it cheaper.
#7 is really not their problem. If you want to bike to work, that's great, but otherwise the only way your vehicle is going to help you stay in shape is to be large enough to contain a mobile gym. Which seems pretty silly.
If you want only a few versions with long support to evaluate it might be better to stick to for example Ubuntu 6.06 LTS & Ubuntu 8.04 LTS. Then you wouldn't have to evaluate a new version every six months.
But sure, it won't beat the ~10 year support period of Windows XP:)
I'd bet that if the government wanted 10 years of support for 8.04 and was willing to pay for it, Canonical would jump at the chance. Since each copy is still free, and since any problems and fixes that are discovered can be freely shared among the government's IT staff, it would probably still be much cheaper.
I know some css nerds will tell me if I feel that way I should use my own css. first off I don't have time for that. second, it's likely if I mess with CSS on an overly tuned web page i;ll make it less readable not more.
I still think this can only improve your situation. As you said, you can use your own CSS, or none at all (in FireFox: View > Page Style > No Style). You may be too lazy to change it, but at least you'll have the option.
People already use non-standard fonts on web pages. They just use images or Flash or whatever, which gives the user zero control over appearance.
Additional benefits: since these wacky fonts will be sent as actual text, you'll still be able to Control+F search them, resize them, index them with a search engine, or have them read to you if you're blind.
I'm all for competition, but previous music efforts by Microsoft have been hilariously bad. This interview is comedic gold for cluelessness. An actual Q&A with Hugh Griffiths, Head of Mobile at Microsoft UK:
If I buy these songs on your service - and they're locked to my phone - what happens when I upgrade my phone in six months' time?
Granted, IE and Firefox (I know there are others, but they're not worth talking about) aren't exactly slim and trim in the resources department, but they're just compiling for display purposes, not doing any intensive calculations.
I don't know. Have you seen the new HTML5 demos with FF 3.5? They're using Javascript to modify pixels in videos as they play. With Javascript engines getting faster and JS libraries getting more powerful, we may be surprised what intensive work can be done in the browser in the next few years.
I think I'm with you, but I can see an argument that Pandora is different from a radio station. A radio station arguably promotes music sales; services that customize their playlists to your tastes might actually replace music sales. Maybe music becomes a service rather than a product in that case.
I do think it's silly that DJ-controlled stations should be charged differently simply because one broadcasts via radio and one via internet.
Beardo, I'm truly sorry that your workplace forces you to run IE6. But at some point that has to be their problem instead of everyone else's. Eventually they are going to have to migrate or deal with the fact that many web sites won't load for them.
If any site should be able to drop IE6 support, it's Slashdot.
A few days ago at work I was looking for an Outlook email conversation from maybe 6 months prior. Spent several minutes and couldn't find it, meaning I have to repeat some work, which costs the company.
If I open my personal Gmail, I can find a 4-year-old congratulatory email from my brother in about 5 seconds with a simple search.
My company would be better served by the searchability Gmail offers. Whatever other obstacles there are, that's a great benefit.
If you think you can just hire web developers in some random remote city/country and have your project run just fine, you don't understand how to manage web development projects.
Who said random? I'm suggesting hiring a reputable web design company who understands standards. They wouldn't exist if they couldn't do great work for people who aren't in their city.
You're right that paying something is a lot more hassle than paying nothing. But I doubt you'd have to enter your payment information more than once. Automatic micropayments to the same company are a lot easier than whipping out your card every time you visit a new web site.
I don't like that word "interactive." All web sites are interactive - this ain't TV. Usually "interactive" means "uses fancy animations via Flash and/or Silverlight." Which means "is slow and not very accessible."
If they went with someone like Happy Cog they would have a standards-based design that would be fast and accessible and look shiny too. I guess we'll see what they come up with.
(Of course, I haven't discussed the server side, which no doubt will be the heavy lifting.)
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, the understanding of historical concepts and trends evolves quite a bit.
"Evolves" is the right word, too; it doesn't imply improvement, just changing to fit the times. Is it really possible to write a better history of Rome than was written by its contemporaries? Or do we just consider ourselves more enlightened? Sure, we've seen where a lot of the trends were headed, but surely we've lost a lot of context for understanding the events.
Who knows? The fact that history textbooks keep changing is telling. Are we getting better evidence about history all the time? Maybe. But I think mostly our perceptions of life - and therefore history - keep changing. So we rewrite the books, but they may not be more correct, just more contemporary.
Our history books will be scoffed at by the historians of future generations, too.
True, and I cheer every time I see one of those stories. But I guarantee they're doing a cost/benefit analysis: the cost of supporting IE6 vs the revenue from those customers. They don't turn them away out of some nerd rage principle like the OP seemed to advocate.
Oooh! Pick me! Pick me!
Here goes: "I don't want to upgrade from IE6 for one very simple reason: I don't want to install IE6 in the first place."
Do I win?
Sounds beautiful. Good luck.
I agree. To me, digital music won't be a satisfactory replacement for physical albums** until I get artwork and lyrics (preferably synced to the music to be displayed when desired) with it.
I don't trust the competence or good will of the record companies to do this right, though, and a .zip file with music, .png and .pdf files is almost good enough. I'd rather have that than some inscrutable proprietary format.
**Even then, I like having the physical album as a backup. To heck with re-buying music over and over to be able to play it on different devices.
Customer: Why can't I use your shopping site?
Designer: You have a crap browser.
Customer: You have a crap site. I'm going to your competitor.
Designer: Victory!
(2 weeks later)
Designer: Would you like fries with that?
I wonder how this affects lag? Sure, a bullet will get to the wall pretty quickly, but in some games, there is basically zero lag between firing and hitting the enemy. Here you fire, the bullet hits, the computer calculates, and then the avatar shoots, right?
If you search for "why is Windows expensive," you should get results showing pages that contain that text or something similar. Whether or not Windows is actually expensive is beside the point.
A search engine is there to show you pages that resemble what you typed. It is not there to argue with you, even if you're wrong. You can search Google for "why Obama is a cat" and it will at least try to find pages that resemble your query.
Well that's a pretty big one, don't you think? Considering that the whole point of add-ons is to add features. And that Firefox, for example, has thousands of add-ons.
Frankly, I think it's silly to have to argue that different browsers have different functionality. Google it.
So you favor a country where companies can pay pennies for hazardous jobs, lie about food ingredients, sell toasters that burn your house down and cars that explode on impact, spam and telemarket freely, advertise cigarettes on Saturday morning cartoons, etc? Or maybe you didn't mean *never*.
Wow. That is a terrible car analogy.
First, it's impractical to offer you a choice of steering wheels. It's easy to offer a choice of browsers - and browser have functional, non-cosmetic differences.
Second, your steering wheel choice affects nobody but you (unless it's so bad you can't steer). Having everyone on IE makes the whole internet subject to Microsoft's decisions instead of web standards, and costs tons of developer time. It also gives Microsoft the advantage in promoting their development platforms and tools. After all, if everyone uses Windows and IE, why not use Windows Server and IIS and .NET and Silverlight and ActiveX and blink tags? Even a free browser can steer people back towards Microsoft products.
Take a look at how slowly the web developed while IE was a monolith, and how fast it's developing with a lot of browser competition. In a couple of years you'll be playing FPS games in your browser, dragging and dropping files in and out, playing games that don't depend on any plugins, and more. All thanks to IE losing market share.
Even if you feel like MS is being meddled with, it seems pretty clear that it's going to create more competition and be a good thing for the web.
Yes! And some day, when all apps are in the cloud, it won't matter in the slightest which OS you use, as long as you have a browser! Your company will let you use whichever one you want!
Then, finally, my fellow nerds, it will be The Year of Linux On the Desktop. (For you. Not that it will matter.)
I know squat about this subject, but it does seem that they have some luxuries that the BlackBerry battery doesn't have. For example, it's no problem if the car battery becomes hot to the touch while charging.
Still, good point.
A nice wish list, but most of it has nothing to do with the problem they're trying to solve: making electric vehicles as practical as gas-burning ones are today.
#1-3 could be solved by cars that drive themselves. #4 would involve a shift toward car-sharing or public transportation.
#5 and #6 are valid requirements that amount to the same thing: it should be cheap enough to win in the market. But I think it's reasonable to make it work, first, then worry about making it cheaper.
#7 is really not their problem. If you want to bike to work, that's great, but otherwise the only way your vehicle is going to help you stay in shape is to be large enough to contain a mobile gym. Which seems pretty silly.
I'd bet that if the government wanted 10 years of support for 8.04 and was willing to pay for it, Canonical would jump at the chance. Since each copy is still free, and since any problems and fixes that are discovered can be freely shared among the government's IT staff, it would probably still be much cheaper.
I still think this can only improve your situation. As you said, you can use your own CSS, or none at all (in FireFox: View > Page Style > No Style). You may be too lazy to change it, but at least you'll have the option.
People already use non-standard fonts on web pages. They just use images or Flash or whatever, which gives the user zero control over appearance.
Additional benefits: since these wacky fonts will be sent as actual text, you'll still be able to Control+F search them, resize them, index them with a search engine, or have them read to you if you're blind.
I'm all for competition, but previous music efforts by Microsoft have been hilariously bad. This interview is comedic gold for cluelessness. An actual Q&A with Hugh Griffiths, Head of Mobile at Microsoft UK:
I don't know. Have you seen the new HTML5 demos with FF 3.5? They're using Javascript to modify pixels in videos as they play. With Javascript engines getting faster and JS libraries getting more powerful, we may be surprised what intensive work can be done in the browser in the next few years.
I think I'm with you, but I can see an argument that Pandora is different from a radio station. A radio station arguably promotes music sales; services that customize their playlists to your tastes might actually replace music sales. Maybe music becomes a service rather than a product in that case.
I do think it's silly that DJ-controlled stations should be charged differently simply because one broadcasts via radio and one via internet.
Beardo, I'm truly sorry that your workplace forces you to run IE6. But at some point that has to be their problem instead of everyone else's. Eventually they are going to have to migrate or deal with the fact that many web sites won't load for them.
If any site should be able to drop IE6 support, it's Slashdot.
A few days ago at work I was looking for an Outlook email conversation from maybe 6 months prior. Spent several minutes and couldn't find it, meaning I have to repeat some work, which costs the company.
If I open my personal Gmail, I can find a 4-year-old congratulatory email from my brother in about 5 seconds with a simple search.
My company would be better served by the searchability Gmail offers. Whatever other obstacles there are, that's a great benefit.
Who said random? I'm suggesting hiring a reputable web design company who understands standards. They wouldn't exist if they couldn't do great work for people who aren't in their city.
You're right that paying something is a lot more hassle than paying nothing. But I doubt you'd have to enter your payment information more than once. Automatic micropayments to the same company are a lot easier than whipping out your card every time you visit a new web site.
If you think you have to hire web developers in the city where you live, you don't understand the web.
I don't like that word "interactive." All web sites are interactive - this ain't TV. Usually "interactive" means "uses fancy animations via Flash and/or Silverlight." Which means "is slow and not very accessible."
If they went with someone like Happy Cog they would have a standards-based design that would be fast and accessible and look shiny too. I guess we'll see what they come up with.
(Of course, I haven't discussed the server side, which no doubt will be the heavy lifting.)