Normally I prefer dead tree version because of poor indexing or navigation in E-Book form. It is also much easier to read a book looking down on a seperate page[than my monitor], one that isnt backlit or just plain throwing light at my eyes. If I had an E-Reader or something, I might use them, but the technology to deliver an enjoyable E-reading experience just isnt availible yet. Once we have E-Paper, I can just crack open a Tome of Everything, tape the corner of a page before I close the book, and always open right up to that page in the future. Then instead of actually turning the pages, I can just have the pages move around the book. E-Paper has the benifits of being electronic while still being able to be carried off to another room.
I'm calling something small which is thousands of times my size. Isnt that the very oposite of putting humans first on the list? Where the fuck do you find anything remotely human-related in that? Have you taken a look at our solar system? Things are pretty fucking large out there. I wouldnt call a stray human being flung around a planet a moon, but my question is 'is there someone who might?' What is the cutoff? 3km, compared to any other body in the system, is REALLY FUCK'N SMALL. Humans are too small to even bother noting the existence of.
Once Linux gets a large user-base (yes, You can consider it large now, but you'd be wrong in this context, 'kay?), there will be a shitload of user complaints. Finally something will be done about many of the very serious (to a USER, not a techie) problems which Linux faces. And hopefully, our solutions will be better than those of windows. Remember: Options, not changes!
I guess this is just an issue of what each of us considers a bug. I consider a system intended for the administrator of a network to send messages, being able to be used by someone who is not the administrator of the network, a bug. I consider any exploitation of any bug which allows you to access, modify, or present information which you were not intended to be able to access, modify, or present to be hacking.
Well if this were only effecting LAN you could just walk up and punch the guy, couldnt you?:) My dad's gotten these messages through the 'net, though, so I doubt all this "broadcast" stuff is real. Probably cycling IPs just like WinNuke ("I didnt know it was wrong!")
1) My computer "listening" for packets which would erase my data (just like many bugs which have been reported on slashdot) would not even be given a second thought. Nobody would be saying "Well, you're the one who bought an OS and didnt have complete foreknowledge of all the services and what they entailed" and taken seriously.
2) as for your first point, though it's been covered in the first part of my message as well, I just thought I'd mention
Broadcasts as in IP-less packets being sent out to be bounced back to every computer on the subnet? That even working through an ISP is appalling. Their routers/switches should kill such packets instantly.
How's this for an idea: Make it illegal to hack into someone's computer and display advertisements. What's that? It IS illegal to hack into someone's computer no matter what the purpose? Woops!
Extend the metaphore. Think of each channel as one sushi.. thing.. whatever the individual unit of sushi is (wrap? I dont know.. whatever) The way it's currently set up, the only way to get any sushi at all is if you order [this is based on my cable company] 69 sushi things. To me, that's too much sushi, and some of it I wouldnt even want by itself. The resteraunt won't even let me share what I get with others(as illogical as this sounds. Even if it seems unenforceable, there are federal laws stating that you CAN'T share your sushi with someone else. The resteraunt doesnt have to enforce it because they got the government to) Some of the sushi has weird spanish spices on it, some of it is prepared Kosher, some of it is prepared with alchohol and served on the same big plate even though I ordered with my family. The only way to get the house special is to get another 10 peices of shrimp. Well, not really. They serve the house special on the same big plate, but they'll only let you eat it with their special silverware, and if you try to get at it with the chopsticks you had to bring yourself, they arrest you. The silverware costs more money, and comes with an e-mail account, but also comes with a menu that will tell you which of the sushi has alchohol in it- something you can get to otherwise only by waiting for somebody to walk by with a menu, all the while talking about how to get cheap patents, and of course calling out information about other sushis which if you'd have been able to eat you wouldnt be paying attention to the menu guy anyway.... did I have a point?:)
I've never used anything like this myself, but I've heard some great things about bootable CDs with full distros of Linux on them. I think that a great way to bring linux to the masses is to make a "Knoppix wizzard" of sorts, that asks you questions about what you want to have done, then creates an ISO that will do exactly that. The idea is to be able to easily create CDs which, well, if misused could be dangerous, but if not misused could be handed out to anybody, potentially fit in a wallet in business-card size, and would when dropped in, boot to a fully working linux distro and start up a presentation showing off whatever feature it is you're trying to show off (Want your boss to use open office[.org]? Run the wizzard, burn, hand him the CD). If you wanted to, you could make a CD that when dropped in, would reboot the system, scan everything, install linux, and then eject the CD. That's what I'm talking about when I say "could be dangerous", but I figure a no-click installation is a sure way to give tech-shy users a chance. Even if you're savy, terminology used in installation can be needlessly obscure [Mount point? wtf?! You mean a drive is on top of another drive?!]
Of course, I just come up with these stupid ideas- I rarely impliment anything. Still, someone I mentioned it to said it sounded like a good idea, and I do think that something like it could be useful. I'm interested in making life for linux users easy, and would be glad to contribute to such a project in whatever way I can which does not conflict with my near-total laziness. No, really.
You'll have to put up with the imperial march every time some random asshole wants to call you. I like the idea of theme music, I used to have IRC scripts that played music in the background when certain people joined, but widespread use of this would be bad. Keep it for the geeks, kill off everyone else.
yes, that littl factoid about the 2nd ammendment is something that far too few people realize. The whole system of government was designed not only to not need to be overthrown, but to be over-throwable by the people in case the first part didnt work. I really wish more people understood that. There might be much less voter apathy if people knew what voting was for. The whole communist scare was obviously innitiated by people who realized this. If more people voted, there wouldnt be cause for concern that a communist party existed. Voting and keeping in touch with your representative is really the only thing to prevent the country from being quite legally overthrown every two years.
"The gun is set to only fire from the hand of Mr. Thompson, the bullistics match this gun, the gun was registered under the name of Mr. Thompson, A partial of Mr. Thomspon's fingerprint was found on the gun, The is NO other logical conclusion that could possibly be made!"
The real reason for this law, of course, is to slip in yet another provision for the purpose of making guns useless. Once they're completely useless for any practical purpose, there will be much less resistance to any law banning guns altogether- "Well, I do think I should have the right to protect myself, but then it's not like I'd be able to fire a gun in time anyway. I won't bother contacting my representative." Already any killing can be ruled premeditated murder based only on the gun used being kept loaded and in a place where you could get at it if you need it. There have been laws proposed and passed requiring "gun locks" to be placed over triggers so that you need a key to use the gun. I'm sorry, but the self defence rule of reaching for your keys when you're being attacked should only apply when you aren't carying a gun. There will always be people who are pro-gun and people who are anti-gun. I dont think there's a need to go for the cliche "If guns are outlawed..", just remember that if your potential attacker doesnt think you can get your gun to fire before he can get your arms behind you, he is a lot more likely to act. The other guy doesnt need to have a gun if yours doesnt work. Guns are made not to protect, but to kill. I hated walking through school and seeing guns every day. It isnt thinking that someone else could grab that gun and use it, I hate it no matter who is holding the gun. So yeah, I'm a moron, I guess. I want citizens to be able to protect themselves [read: kill the other guy] with a gun, but I dont want police walking the streets with them. Stupid dream, aint it? Many people may consider this a step in the right direction: It's not gun restricting it's gun control, literally! This is what we've really been asking for the whole time, right? The dream is to have complete control over the gun- exactly when and how it can be used. Know that the law's idea of when and how a gun should be used is NOT your own belief. If you are against guns, you want more restrictions, if you are for them, you want less. If you're the one holding the gun, you don't give half a shit either way, 'cause all that shit you're saving up for yourself. Some situation has placed a gun in your hands, and all you can care about is using it in the way that situation demands. If it means you're about to shoot someone the law would deem innocent, you do not respect the law. Dont begin to lie saying that you wouldnt want the option. You have the gun, he's in front of you, and the last thing on your mind should be "God, I hope this thing actually fires", even less "Shit! What was my keycode?!" [note to whoever is going to reply 'you say last and then even less, that is impossible': I know that, sometimes words are written to be impossible in order to express an eggageration.] Whenever you are going to shoot a person, your desired action is not within the limits of the law. Remember this when considering how much control the law should have over your guns.
As I said last time I posted like this, my facts are probably not, and in general what I said could probably be viewed as entirely innaccurate. The point of this message is not to promote accuracy, but thought and discussion. Whether the thoughts or discussions it promotes are intelligent or not is entirely up to the reader. That said, it should be obvious that simply calling me an idiot or pointing out innacuracies is rather pointless, as anyone who has gotten to your post has probably made their way through mine, and so would know such things already.
I see it the other way around, really. The label is a 'metaphor' for the button, and it's a metaphor which most people take for granted. It's because this 'metaphor' is such an obvious one that it is easy to confuse which is the metaphor and which is actuality. In actuality, the button is the real part of the form, and the label is nothing more than a description. A human sees the label as being the thing they want, and that is the part of the form they are interested in. It isnt the inability of someone to grasp a concept, it's about usability. You could grasp the concept of havng the whole page be navigated by rightclick context menus (yep, some modern browsers support that now), but you as a designer don't want to do that, because it isnt the most convenient way to do anything. Make it easy for users of your site, and people will feel better being there.
Not one place can you go where you need to click the small circle of a radio button rather than the option next to it. I'm sure somebody has noticed this. Not one place in any GUI anywhere must you click a status indicator rather than the option you wish to choose. Look around your desktop, look for radio buttons, and click next to them. Nobody ever does it any differently because it is the most convenient and logical way to make it work. Nobody except Every Page On The Net Anywhere. And I think it's just plain stupid. People, please, do this:
function setopt(form,opt,i) {
eval('var opt = document.' + form + '.' + opt + '[' + i + '];');
opt.click(); }
and stick an a onlick= around your options. It's fast, it's easy, it doesnt add much clutter, and it's more widely supported than label tags. It is very annoying to have to click NOT what I want, but some tiny thing next to what I want, in order to get the option I want. I dont see why this setopt() practice isnt used on many more websites. I'd think at least/. would realize how stupid it is to have to click on some tiny thing next to their poll option, but maybe they havent noticed that the web is the only place they ever have to do that. Maybe they just dont use any other program with radio options. Maybe they never even open their browser's preference window. Come on, people! Am I missing something here? Just add ONE EXTRA ANCHOR around your option, and usability increases suddenly becomes much more comfortable.
I say they should just have a link on their page that goes to a list of other pages already availible. There are some good people with too much time on their hands who have already done some great jobs at calling others idiots. Just link to them.
Slashdot Mirror
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!! I mean it! GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!
Imagine a
oh, no.. I just can't say it -_-...
E-Books are a lot less waterproof.
Normally I prefer dead tree version because of poor indexing or navigation in E-Book form. It is also much easier to read a book looking down on a seperate page[than my monitor], one that isnt backlit or just plain throwing light at my eyes.
If I had an E-Reader or something, I might use them, but the technology to deliver an enjoyable E-reading experience just isnt availible yet. Once we have E-Paper, I can just crack open a Tome of Everything, tape the corner of a page before I close the book, and always open right up to that page in the future. Then instead of actually turning the pages, I can just have the pages move around the book. E-Paper has the benifits of being electronic while still being able to be carried off to another room.
I hope they make it waterproof.
I'm calling something small which is thousands of times my size. Isnt that the very oposite of putting humans first on the list? Where the fuck do you find anything remotely human-related in that? Have you taken a look at our solar system? Things are pretty fucking large out there. I wouldnt call a stray human being flung around a planet a moon, but my question is 'is there someone who might?' What is the cutoff? 3km, compared to any other body in the system, is REALLY FUCK'N SMALL.
Humans are too small to even bother noting the existence of.
At what point is something no longer called a "moon" and just given the title "Debris"? 3km sure is small.
the idea of someone being at an Ice Conference is troubling.
Plus it's mexico. Hear lots of good things about their police, there. Right.
Once Linux gets a large user-base (yes, You can consider it large now, but you'd be wrong in this context, 'kay?), there will be a shitload of user complaints. Finally something will be done about many of the very serious (to a USER, not a techie) problems which Linux faces. And hopefully, our solutions will be better than those of windows.
Remember: Options, not changes!
I guess this is just an issue of what each of us considers a bug.
I consider a system intended for the administrator of a network to send messages, being able to be used by someone who is not the administrator of the network, a bug.
I consider any exploitation of any bug which allows you to access, modify, or present information which you were not intended to be able to access, modify, or present to be hacking.
Two years ago: Nobody would pay for this shit
Now: Some people would.
Percent incrase: ((Now/Then) * 100) - 100
WARNING: DIVIDE BY ZERO!
INFINITE GROWTH!!!!!!
Well if this were only effecting LAN you could just walk up and punch the guy, couldnt you? :)
My dad's gotten these messages through the 'net, though, so I doubt all this "broadcast" stuff is real. Probably cycling IPs just like WinNuke ("I didnt know it was wrong!")
1) My computer "listening" for packets which would erase my data (just like many bugs which have been reported on slashdot) would not even be given a second thought. Nobody would be saying "Well, you're the one who bought an OS and didnt have complete foreknowledge of all the services and what they entailed" and taken seriously.
2) as for your first point, though it's been covered in the first part of my message as well, I just thought I'd mention
Broadcasts as in IP-less packets being sent out to be bounced back to every computer on the subnet? That even working through an ISP is appalling. Their routers/switches should kill such packets instantly.
How's this for an idea: Make it illegal to hack into someone's computer and display advertisements.
What's that? It IS illegal to hack into someone's computer no matter what the purpose? Woops!
Extend the metaphore. Think of each channel as one sushi.. thing.. whatever the individual unit of sushi is (wrap? I dont know.. whatever) ... did I have a point? :)
The way it's currently set up, the only way to get any sushi at all is if you order [this is based on my cable company] 69 sushi things. To me, that's too much sushi, and some of it I wouldnt even want by itself. The resteraunt won't even let me share what I get with others(as illogical as this sounds. Even if it seems unenforceable, there are federal laws stating that you CAN'T share your sushi with someone else. The resteraunt doesnt have to enforce it because they got the government to) Some of the sushi has weird spanish spices on it, some of it is prepared Kosher, some of it is prepared with alchohol and served on the same big plate even though I ordered with my family. The only way to get the house special is to get another 10 peices of shrimp. Well, not really. They serve the house special on the same big plate, but they'll only let you eat it with their special silverware, and if you try to get at it with the chopsticks you had to bring yourself, they arrest you. The silverware costs more money, and comes with an e-mail account, but also comes with a menu that will tell you which of the sushi has alchohol in it- something you can get to otherwise only by waiting for somebody to walk by with a menu, all the while talking about how to get cheap patents, and of course calling out information about other sushis which if you'd have been able to eat you wouldnt be paying attention to the menu guy anyway.
I've never used anything like this myself, but I've heard some great things about bootable CDs with full distros of Linux on them. I think that a great way to bring linux to the masses is to make a "Knoppix wizzard" of sorts, that asks you questions about what you want to have done, then creates an ISO that will do exactly that. The idea is to be able to easily create CDs which, well, if misused could be dangerous, but if not misused could be handed out to anybody, potentially fit in a wallet in business-card size, and would when dropped in, boot to a fully working linux distro and start up a presentation showing off whatever feature it is you're trying to show off (Want your boss to use open office[.org]? Run the wizzard, burn, hand him the CD). If you wanted to, you could make a CD that when dropped in, would reboot the system, scan everything, install linux, and then eject the CD. That's what I'm talking about when I say "could be dangerous", but I figure a no-click installation is a sure way to give tech-shy users a chance. Even if you're savy, terminology used in installation can be needlessly obscure [Mount point? wtf?! You mean a drive is on top of another drive?!]
Of course, I just come up with these stupid ideas- I rarely impliment anything. Still, someone I mentioned it to said it sounded like a good idea, and I do think that something like it could be useful. I'm interested in making life for linux users easy, and would be glad to contribute to such a project in whatever way I can which does not conflict with my near-total laziness. No, really.
You'll have to put up with the imperial march every time some random asshole wants to call you. I like the idea of theme music, I used to have IRC scripts that played music in the background when certain people joined, but widespread use of this would be bad. Keep it for the geeks, kill off everyone else.
First Verdict!
yes, that littl factoid about the 2nd ammendment is something that far too few people realize. The whole system of government was designed not only to not need to be overthrown, but to be over-throwable by the people in case the first part didnt work. I really wish more people understood that. There might be much less voter apathy if people knew what voting was for. The whole communist scare was obviously innitiated by people who realized this. If more people voted, there wouldnt be cause for concern that a communist party existed. Voting and keeping in touch with your representative is really the only thing to prevent the country from being quite legally overthrown every two years.
;)
It's those damned chinese!
"The gun is set to only fire from the hand of Mr. Thompson, the bullistics match this gun, the gun was registered under the name of Mr. Thompson, A partial of Mr. Thomspon's fingerprint was found on the gun, The is NO other logical conclusion that could possibly be made!"
The real reason for this law, of course, is to slip in yet another provision for the purpose of making guns useless. Once they're completely useless for any practical purpose, there will be much less resistance to any law banning guns altogether- "Well, I do think I should have the right to protect myself, but then it's not like I'd be able to fire a gun in time anyway. I won't bother contacting my representative." Already any killing can be ruled premeditated murder based only on the gun used being kept loaded and in a place where you could get at it if you need it. There have been laws proposed and passed requiring "gun locks" to be placed over triggers so that you need a key to use the gun. I'm sorry, but the self defence rule of reaching for your keys when you're being attacked should only apply when you aren't carying a gun.
There will always be people who are pro-gun and people who are anti-gun. I dont think there's a need to go for the cliche "If guns are outlawed..", just remember that if your potential attacker doesnt think you can get your gun to fire before he can get your arms behind you, he is a lot more likely to act. The other guy doesnt need to have a gun if yours doesnt work.
Guns are made not to protect, but to kill. I hated walking through school and seeing guns every day. It isnt thinking that someone else could grab that gun and use it, I hate it no matter who is holding the gun.
So yeah, I'm a moron, I guess. I want citizens to be able to protect themselves [read: kill the other guy] with a gun, but I dont want police walking the streets with them. Stupid dream, aint it?
Many people may consider this a step in the right direction: It's not gun restricting it's gun control, literally! This is what we've really been asking for the whole time, right?
The dream is to have complete control over the gun- exactly when and how it can be used. Know that the law's idea of when and how a gun should be used is NOT your own belief. If you are against guns, you want more restrictions, if you are for them, you want less. If you're the one holding the gun, you don't give half a shit either way, 'cause all that shit you're saving up for yourself. Some situation has placed a gun in your hands, and all you can care about is using it in the way that situation demands. If it means you're about to shoot someone the law would deem innocent, you do not respect the law. Dont begin to lie saying that you wouldnt want the option. You have the gun, he's in front of you, and the last thing on your mind should be "God, I hope this thing actually fires", even less "Shit! What was my keycode?!" [note to whoever is going to reply 'you say last and then even less, that is impossible': I know that, sometimes words are written to be impossible in order to express an eggageration.]
Whenever you are going to shoot a person, your desired action is not within the limits of the law. Remember this when considering how much control the law should have over your guns.
As I said last time I posted like this, my facts are probably not, and in general what I said could probably be viewed as entirely innaccurate. The point of this message is not to promote accuracy, but thought and discussion. Whether the thoughts or discussions it promotes are intelligent or not is entirely up to the reader. That said, it should be obvious that simply calling me an idiot or pointing out innacuracies is rather pointless, as anyone who has gotten to your post has probably made their way through mine, and so would know such things already.
I see it the other way around, really. The label is a 'metaphor' for the button, and it's a metaphor which most people take for granted. It's because this 'metaphor' is such an obvious one that it is easy to confuse which is the metaphor and which is actuality. In actuality, the button is the real part of the form, and the label is nothing more than a description. A human sees the label as being the thing they want, and that is the part of the form they are interested in. It isnt the inability of someone to grasp a concept, it's about usability. You could grasp the concept of havng the whole page be navigated by rightclick context menus (yep, some modern browsers support that now), but you as a designer don't want to do that, because it isnt the most convenient way to do anything. Make it easy for users of your site, and people will feel better being there.
And I think it's just plain stupid. People, please, do this:and stick an a onlick= around your options. It's fast, it's easy, it doesnt add much clutter, and it's more widely supported than label tags. It is very annoying to have to click NOT what I want, but some tiny thing next to what I want, in order to get the option I want. I dont see why this setopt() practice isnt used on many more websites. I'd think at least
I say they should just have a link on their page that goes to a list of other pages already availible. There are some good people with too much time on their hands who have already done some great jobs at calling others idiots. Just link to them.
Seriously, I mean it :)