In essence, most studies indicate longer line length leads to faster reading. But also, people on average seem to prefer having a moderate line length over a longer one.
In my view the latter measure is more important. I'd rather have a layout which is more pleasing than one which is faster to read.
(Of course ideally you have a variable-width layout so the reader can choose himself)
I disagree, I thought he spoke well. And at one point he got very passionate, and that's simply the way he expresses himself. It was refreshing to see.
Still, I had to pause and rewind the video several times, because he talked too fast. Thats because several links sprung up in my head, and ideas came.
I think that the fact that he was enthusiastic about his subject and clearly wanted to tell people about it came across as unpleasant or pushy or something.
I thought that just made it better - people who are interested in what they're talking about and want to tell you about it tend to be more interesting than those that just do it because they need to.
The jokes and gestures seemed studied to make an impression. It didn't come across so natural. But it did not bother me too much - I don't like being manipulated, but his words were entertaining enough, therefore the "OK" verdict.
Not only does he have the stage manner of an uncaring dentist, it's worth remembering he's an undemocratically elected leader espousing all sorts of nonsense about democracy.
I assume what is meant is that Tony Blair stood in the election, his party won and then later Gordon Brown was chosen to replace him by the party, not by the ordinary voter.
Oh, I suppose someone who doesn't understand the Westminster system might think that... but it's important to understand that the people never elected Tony Blair to the position of Prime Minister either.
(I should point out that people might not understand the Westminster system even if they live in a country that uses it. In Canada last year, there was a fiasco about how three opposition parties wanted to form a coalition government to replace the Prime Minister without an election. Perfectly legal, but a lot of Canadians were convinced that it was a sort of coup. The current Prime Minister exploited this and ended up keeping his seat.)
but it's important to understand that the people never elected Tony Blair to the position of Prime Minister either.
That's legally true but pragmatically false. Sure, we vote for the MP to represent our local seat and then a majority of MPs results in a leading party, but that's not how elections are pitched.
Back in 1997, we had a worse than useless Conservative party headed by John Major and a fresh, rebranded "New Labour" party headed by Tony Blair. People voted for Labour MPs in their droves to get Tony Blair into power. He was not technically democratically voted to the position of PM but that was considered the natural result of voting Labour.
We did not, however, vote for Brown in any form, legally or pragmatically. Indeed, it was not even considered at the time that he would be a successor. The same situation occurred with both Callaghan and Major but I personally feel the British public has less of a taste for the old school Westminster style and has a better feel for the almost presidential style brought in by Blair.
This information should not need to reside on the net and be owned by a private corporation. One of the problems mentioned in the article is that every individual should own his/her data.
I think to adress the issues correctly all this info should be stored locally and/or on your phone.
Yeah, that's more or less what I'd like it to work, but I think using phones or other devices that may get offline would be unworkable (at least in the present). You could, however, act as your own gateway just like you can do with OpenID right now
I think you are conflating a call for action with an idea for a startup. To be more effective you should focus on one of these only.
As for your proposed solution, such services already exists, i.e. webfinger which Google may be supporting in the future.
So the challenge is really, how to enable widespread adoption for webfinger or something similar. If you have an ingenious idea how to support that, lets hear it. Because you are right, it would mean a lot of progress for the web.
It is a pity the author thinks 6-8 weeks is the ideal duration for such a trip.. yes that is about when the inital novelty wears off and it doesnt feel much like a regular "vacation" any longer. As much as the tourist/traveler characterization is a cliche, this is where you stop being the former and start being the latter...
I can recommend going at least 6 months abroad, if you can make the time.
Right. However I think the article is valid insofar as that the environmental problems caused by those 78% of corporations cannot be adequately addressed through end-consumer behavior. And that the impact of being "green" in your consumer behavior is quite negligble in the big picture.
Unfortunately the solution suggested by the article is the destruction of "intellectual, moral, economic, and physical infrastructures". How unoriginal. I was waiting for some scheme of energy/resource taxes which, if harsh enough, would surely influence the behavior of the 78% evil scary corporations.
I think you missed the point of my post. My point was that consumers produce 22% of pollution directly, and 78% indirectly.
Suppose I contribute 22 tons of pollution by driving my car, and GM contributes 78 tons of pollution building the car. Therefore, if I don't buy the car, pollution only drops by 22 tons!
This analysis ignores the fact that if I won't buy a car, GM won't build it (reducing pollution by 100 tons).
"Say a hacker who's suddenly become wealthy from a Linux-related IPO approaches you and says, 'Here's a million dollars. Let's make a full-blown, graphics-rich version of Nethack to rival Diablo. Interested?'"
That would really kick ass. Anyone having a spare million dolars?
There are graphic clients available, in various stages of maintenance (see the Wiki article on NH). But I keep going back to the text version. It's like porting Pacman to the Quake or other 3d engine - you don't really gain anything, and arguably the visual distractions get in the way, over-emphasizing the limitations of the square grid and limited view. Additionally, the isometric 3d of some ports makes it too easy to step into the wrong square.
When I was in High School (80s) I used to sneak onto the campus of the local technical college to play Hack.
I suspect it would take more than a million dollars to make a modern graphics-rich game, regardless of its basis in Nethack.
I'd certainly like to play such a game, though. The depth of the Nethack world is impressive. Put it on the Wii so I can swing swords, throw daggers, fling spells, etc. and I would probably never be heard from in the real world again.
Thanks for the link, there were some helpful pointers in there. In particular, the WikiDrama model seems a good approximation to what we are trying to do:
http://www.communitywiki.org/de/WikiDrama
Actually the rule "facts only" would not really work for this as the reviews will necessarily be opinionated. So it would be more like, in the positive review "The chainsaw effect is really cool" and in the negative review someone else would write "The chainsaw effect gets really boring after a while".
As for vandalism, I agree that this could be a huge problem, however Wikipedia has similar problems for contentious topics. I guess whats needed are 1) a passionate community 2) clear rules what is acceptable and what isnt.
http://blog.fawny.org/2005/09/21/measures/
In essence, most studies indicate longer line length leads to faster reading. But also, people on average seem to prefer having a moderate line length over a longer one.
In my view the latter measure is more important. I'd rather have a layout which is more pleasing than one which is faster to read.
(Of course ideally you have a variable-width layout so the reader can choose himself)