Posts by m0rt 988 publicly visible posts • joined 11 Jul 2015
Kinell, Aman!
I thought you were dead/shutdown/disconnected. Glad you aren't.
But I agree with your sentiment. AO - I really enjoyed your musings on your take on this entire debacle. I wish you had stated your mind, instead of self censoring due to the, suposed, gravitas of the particular company, but I fear I have to unblock ad blocking again for the week.
Well done.
Games i loved on c64:
Wizball
Forbidden Forest
Gunship
Elite (although it was far slower on the c64 than the spectrum, especially when cargo + detritus)
Eddie Kidd (for a few goes. The 'Too Bad! I Hope You Like Hospital Food' splash screen took so long it was irritating. Too irritating.
Way of the Exploding Fist.
Falcon Patrol
R-Type
Bruce Lee
Loads more I can't bring to mind right now.
"Speaking at the launch event, SAP CEO Bill McDermott said that complexity would “kill companies fast” - instead they want “simple”, scalable and efficient way to manage their data."
This sounds like another own goal. If the client wants "Simple" and scalable and efficient, SAP doesn't have a good track record in this regard.
Another one for the marketing bods...
You have a point.
I have a leather jacket that I have owned since new. It has been sent back for replacment liner (worn holes), replacement cuffs and wasteband (Worn cuffs) and replacement zip over the years. It has been washed a total of once. Cleaned off flies (It also does motorcycling duties, but it isn't a specific motorcycling jacket), and it does get conditioned from time to time. I will be buried in this jacket. But I can't see it getting washed again.
But, I wouldn't want a bluetooth thungummy in the thing. I love the part where they state that millenials don't wear watches so they need to sell them something else...
No. No you don't. You can sell a jacket. Find. But seriously? Yes, I have found the 'e-tip' of the gloves I have useful when trying to wrestle with Strava because it thinks I just did 20 miles of cycling in 10 minutes. I do find the odd porthole for headphones useful.
But until you can provide a jacket that has a built in display in the arm*, recovers body heat and motion as stored energy and can warn me about the fact it may rain in the next 30 mins (unlike most apps, recently, which with all the low pressure have been indicating no rain during downpours), AND has built in invisible Solar panels, with a app to display the logo or camouflage of your choice in an outside oled all over the surface, then I won't bother.**
*Which is kind of like having a clear plastic sleeve that you can slide your smartphone into, energy aside. So....
** Not really. This sounds hideous. 16 year old me would probably have thought it wonderful, but then 16 year old me was at the begninning of a lot of life mistakes...
Coincidentally, (i assume coincidentally, it may be that there is some great big Rubik's convergence happening that I am unaware of), my nephew has just done, or is doing, a project at university to complete a Rubik's cube by imaging and motors and a Pi, and Python.
The videos are very impressive...
Yeah. But which flavour? The king Edward camp hate the sweet potato camp and don't let the clustered baby potato crowd start their ego driven wail...
Then you have the superior sounding grow your own group who have beards and don't say much but you can just tell they look down on the rest of them.
"Cats are merely boneless. Everybody knows that."
Actually cats' insides don't inhabit the same dimension as the rest of them. This answers many things about cats. Why they turn up in odd places, etc. They are actually sentient alien drones, designed to examine every part of a world to decide if it is worth invading. It wasn't, apparently. But some of the drones decided that since they could train the top indiginous species easily, they wanted to bunk off and didn't go back. Being Von Neumann machines they replicated and, well, we have the current situation now.
"Gambling is for people who can't do math(s). Gators don't figure into it."
Personally, if you are anywhere near a Gator, there is an element of risk, one could say gambling.
Can't argue with your last two observations. Cheese rules. After cats, that is.
" have had no trouble accessing t'Interwebs for the last 25 years or so."
Obviously you forget the issue of enough channels on your isp for your payment plan of choice in the heady days when v.90 was king*, yet no one got the fabled: 56Kb/s**.
* ISDN was something only the 1% had.
** Imagine this was said by Jeremy Clarkeson
Literally just coming here to say exactly the same thing.
You would think that a Telecoms Supplier, or in this case THE telecoms supplier, would know better. For those that don't know, putting any CLI you want on a phone call is trivial. Sort of like sticking a sticker over your Mondeo, that says Porsche.
Edit - missed the edit window but the actual study goes on to say this:
"These findings also confirm that flat or flat-ish designs can work better in certain conditions than others. "
"Notice that those characteristics are also just good, basic UX design best practice: visual simplicity, external consistency, clear visual hierarchy, and contrast. In general, if you have an experienced UX team that cares about user research, you’ll do better with a flat design than other product teams that don’t. If your designs are already strong, any potential weakness introduced by flat design will be mitigated. If you’re conducting regular user research, any mistakes you make in implementing a flat UI will be identified and corrected."
So what we are now showing is that actually, this isn't a Flat vs 3D simple study. Which means that the Reg article we are discussing, is slanted differently to the conclusions actually put forward by the NN Group.
Ok - so lets see how these figures transfer:
"if there is a 22% loss in navigational efficiency" - which comes down to time taken to perform various tasks. This doesn't say this results in a task not being completed. Just taking longer. So even if we then pick another figure out of the air -
"then yes, revenue on things like ad-clicking or purchasing may very well drop in the billions." How? It may, but equally you can say it may not. So we are no clearer. Or rather, I don't think we are.
"There is a difference between calling BS on some made up marketing numbers and just being cantankerous for no particular reason. The UI-expertise commentards already called you out on your dismissal due to methodology and sample size."
You think they did, but my comment was based on the leap between this study of 71 users then being extrapolated to a comment referring to billions. Not that you can't get any meaning stats on a UI from 71 users. UI expert I am not, but I *do* know you can design a good UI without and with 3d indicators. So throwing a figure of 22% navigational effiency change based on using 3d or not, I am sorry, but I find it very hard to believe you can then say Flat UI is results in lost billions. This is not a scientific methodology. A flat UI vs a 3d UI - these are VERY large areas. To start talking about Metro and OS design based on this study is a little disingenious. I feel.
"Glibness <> insight." True. Forgive my glibness. However, there is a trend to make sweeping statements based on 'marketing style evidence'. I think this is one of them. Admittedly, this is my thought process. Others will disagree.
Overall what we are talking about, potentially, is just being clear on what is and isn't a link on a web page. What is and isn't clickable on an app. This *can* be done with 3d, but equally can be done in a flat way.
Edit: Something bugging me. You put: "1-2% of very big numbers in the triple digits range of $ billions" may very well equate to "billions in lost revenue", which looks like a quote but I am struggling to see where that quote came from? Trying to work out how 1% came into this.
Sorry - this story is presented as Flat UI means lost productivity vs 3d.
I don't buy this. A well presented UI is a well presented UI with or without 3d effects. I am not descrying the fact you can test UI elements with a few users. I am arguing against the flat '3D means more £' rhetoric.
Gah - aethetics = aesthetics.
Anyway, on an 'ire roll' now so lets see where this goes...
If companies, who directly don't lose the billions by inserting a lovely 3d glow around their pop-up 'Hey - subscribe to our newsletter because we ROCK' as soon as you go to their web-app, really were concerned about lost productivity - I wonder how many billions, nay, Trillions, are lost daily because of 'Hey - your call is important to us, please stay on the line so we can bounce you around the globe a few times, in a phone version of a text adventure game!'
Yes. But Billions in lost revenue?
Heatmap testing in a pool for a specific UI, fine. But then to extrapolate that across the, well the entire world using public with a claim of billions in lost revenue?
Sorry, I don't buy that. And being attributed to purely the aethetics and not the layout, information flow, and the segment of population etc. Not for something claimed this high.
If someone had said that 'KDE users more productive than Gnome' there would be a massive outcry at, well lots of things.
But hey. This is the new world APP rapid design, 'fail forward' and all those wonderful terms that mean half arsed conclusions are used to make grandiose decisions.
Personally I would rather an incorrect stereotype than Google professing to represent me.
Anyhow - I don't think the stereotype portrayal puts off people who get a kick from code. I do think that sort of thing pulls people in, regardless of the cool factor portrayed.
I think there are better things to make cool. Like being generally nicer to people in everyday life.
+1 for Alistair Reynolds. Great space operas.
Another favourite is C.J.Cherryh. The Rimrunner universe is a firm favourite of mine. I have an Aldiss first edition of Heliconia Summer sitting around somewhere. The version of 'Spring I have is a reprint, unfortunately. But his works were imaginative and engaging.
Pohl.
Niven.
I think that Science fiction is still going strong, it is just harder to find those that don't feel re-cycled because, well, we have a greater wealth of what we consider science fiction to choose from. But a good story is a good story, the background is incidental.
A few recomendations, that if you haven't read, I strongly recommened:
A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller.
The Postman, David Brin.
The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde.
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