I skipped a step in my own logic. Between the last two paragraphs I meant to say, denying protections to enemies who will not wear uniforms is a very strong measure a nation can take to keep its opponents civilized.
In fact, the public's failure to recognize this fact ITSELF weaken's the Convention - that is a horrible shame. The world needs to be more civilized, even in war - not less.
Actually, the US claims that since the captured people are not wearing uniforms, they are not soldiers, and thus protected by the Geneva Conventions. I know that the concept of "uniformed" is present in the Conventions. But regardless of whether technically the US is violating the Conventions, it does to violate the spirit.
Well, no, actually. The Geneva Convention is not just good principle: it's good pragmatism as well; that soldiers must wear a uniform is integral to its spirit AND its function. Persistent identification of soldiers is the single best way of holding them responsible for their behavior, because a uniformed soldier is, even more than a killing machine, a symbol. It's precisely the nature of, for instance, plain clothes insurgents (or freedom fighters or whatever - pick your favorite term) in Iraq that allows them to so butcher their neighbors with relative political impunity. Meanwhile an American soldier committing the same war crime is much more likely to not only be held accountable - by the local populace, by the media, by their commanders (even if not to the degree you'd like. And note that I'm no apologist here: holding them accountable is always and everywhere a good thing) but to contribute the the ruin of his own country's already tarnished image.
Consider for instance the horrible image the US has acquired during the Iraq conflict - every violation of the Convention (or even rumor of violation) is immediately scrutinized to such a degree that even the foreign policy options of most powerful nation on Earth are affected (and again, not necessarily to the degree you might like, but certainly to A degree); meanwhile, for instance, Sadr's non-uniformed Mahdi Army (the so-called "special groups") can commit incredible, horrendous atrocities against their own countrymen with neither anywhere near the same standard of scrutiny, NOR anywhere near the affect on their policies. No uniform = difficulty in pinning their actions to their image.
So granting the protections of the Geneva Convention to soldiers who refuse to consistently identify themselves is, effectively, to leave civilians at mercy of the forces most willing to commit the atrocities the Convention itself is meant to prevent. A more self destructive application of the Geneva Convention I cannot imagine!
Close but not quite. Yes, the interface should be arranged in a logical way that's obvious to most users, but it should still be customizable. To put it another way: customization should be accounted for but remain optional, while common usability should be possible out of the box with little to no effort on the part of the end user. The notion that imitation with only minor improvement is the key to success is the mentality that results in real-dog new versions of popular software.
I certainly don't disagree. I was trying for "terse", rather than "thorough".
The parent's post was a response to the statement that (paraphrasing) the one thing keeping people from switching to Opera is its interface itself. Exclaiming "but it's totally customizable!!" badly misses the point. If the authors of Opera want these people who don't like the interface to switch, they need to just work on the out-of-the-box interface.
In my opinion, Opera's issues are analogous to that of the Mozilla suite: its great featureset remains - after years and years of hard work - trapped in a UI mess. A comparison of the suite's success to Firefox' is - to the non-fanboy eye - telling.
Much as I'm sick to death of hearing about Opera, they brought cool features like tabs to market...only hardly anybody used Opera. Others started to copy a feature that the average web user neither expected or would know how to use out of the box, and now its standard in the major browsers. That's pretty damned unexpected, wouldn't you say so?
I would argue (if I had the energy) that whoever invented tabs, it was Firefox that exposed the wonders of tabbed browsing to the public, and it's to Firefox UI designers and marketers that credit should largely go. But that is a much touchier subject.
Opera's UI is extremely customizable. Skinnable interface and lots of flexibility with toolbar and button placement, on the output side. On the input side, you can set up your own keyboard shortcuts and mouse gestures if you don't like the default ones.
I don't *want* to fucking customize it. Seriously. If I'm to move out of my comfort zone (Firefox, IE - whatever), it must work the way I expect with minimal intervention. This is such a fucking "DUH" thing it's hard to believe I'm writing it in the year 2006. If you want users, do what they expect, only do it better than the competition. Jesus.
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I skipped a step in my own logic. Between the last two paragraphs I meant to say, denying protections to enemies who will not wear uniforms is a very strong measure a nation can take to keep its opponents civilized.
In fact, the public's failure to recognize this fact ITSELF weaken's the Convention - that is a horrible shame. The world needs to be more civilized, even in war - not less.
Well, no, actually. The Geneva Convention is not just good principle: it's good pragmatism as well; that soldiers must wear a uniform is integral to its spirit AND its function. Persistent identification of soldiers is the single best way of holding them responsible for their behavior, because a uniformed soldier is, even more than a killing machine, a symbol. It's precisely the nature of, for instance, plain clothes insurgents (or freedom fighters or whatever - pick your favorite term) in Iraq that allows them to so butcher their neighbors with relative political impunity. Meanwhile an American soldier committing the same war crime is much more likely to not only be held accountable - by the local populace, by the media, by their commanders (even if not to the degree you'd like. And note that I'm no apologist here: holding them accountable is always and everywhere a good thing) but to contribute the the ruin of his own country's already tarnished image.
Consider for instance the horrible image the US has acquired during the Iraq conflict - every violation of the Convention (or even rumor of violation) is immediately scrutinized to such a degree that even the foreign policy options of most powerful nation on Earth are affected (and again, not necessarily to the degree you might like, but certainly to A degree); meanwhile, for instance, Sadr's non-uniformed Mahdi Army (the so-called "special groups") can commit incredible, horrendous atrocities against their own countrymen with neither anywhere near the same standard of scrutiny, NOR anywhere near the affect on their policies. No uniform = difficulty in pinning their actions to their image.
So granting the protections of the Geneva Convention to soldiers who refuse to consistently identify themselves is, effectively, to leave civilians at mercy of the forces most willing to commit the atrocities the Convention itself is meant to prevent. A more self destructive application of the Geneva Convention I cannot imagine!
So you'd approve of Israeli surgical strikes into the sovereign Lebanese territory, then?
I certainly don't disagree. I was trying for "terse", rather than "thorough".
The parent's post was a response to the statement that (paraphrasing) the one thing keeping people from switching to Opera is its interface itself. Exclaiming "but it's totally customizable!!" badly misses the point. If the authors of Opera want these people who don't like the interface to switch, they need to just work on the out-of-the-box interface.
In my opinion, Opera's issues are analogous to that of the Mozilla suite: its great featureset remains - after years and years of hard work - trapped in a UI mess. A comparison of the suite's success to Firefox' is - to the non-fanboy eye - telling.
I would argue (if I had the energy) that whoever invented tabs, it was Firefox that exposed the wonders of tabbed browsing to the public, and it's to Firefox UI designers and marketers that credit should largely go. But that is a much touchier subject.
-IanI don't *want* to fucking customize it. Seriously. If I'm to move out of my comfort zone (Firefox, IE - whatever), it must work the way I expect with minimal intervention. This is such a fucking "DUH" thing it's hard to believe I'm writing it in the year 2006. If you want users, do what they expect, only do it better than the competition. Jesus.
-Ian