I'm getting worried about myself, because I am not only starting to enjoy these wordy expostulations, I'm even beginning to look forward to them with a small degree of anticipation. Is FRIAM contagious?
On to the fluffing (or larding, depending on your gender/preference): On Fri, Feb 8, 2013 at 11:49 AM, Steve Smith <sasm...@swcp.com> wrote: > > There is nothing in the universe I hate more than the single character > '\' ! > Every time you say "forward slash", a little bit of me dies. XKCD. > > It may be what drives Doug up the wall about Mormons. If they were > further afield from the culture (if not the religion) he grew up in, they > might not irritate him so much? > Nope. I can, and do find practitioners of any and all religious skivvy cults objectionable, regardless of proximity, cultural or otherwise. Additional negative points for proselytizing tendencies. Pin-headed, slavish closed-mindedness is universally unappealing. Throw in religious skivvies, and it is even more so. Yuk. > > I'm sure that all the Mac-heads out there who learned the ins and outs of > MacOS before OSX were the wizards they claimed (postured) to be, and I > suspect they had a bit of a time and pain retooling for OSX. I know a lot > of people who grew up in Winderz who jumped when Linux came out, and I > suspect they too are relatively "bilingual" or more to the point, > "bicultural". Some (many?) here grew up (got their computer chops) after > Windowed Desktops, cross-platform libraries and applications , Web > Browsers, etc. normalized the user experience and to some extent the > developers experience to the point that they *really* don't care which > platform they are on. I would speculate that if I'd been in my teens or > even 20's when all this became de-riguer, I too would be much more > multi-cultural. > > But the fact is, I'm an old dog and new tricks aren't as easy or > entertaining for me as they once were. I love to hate Winderz partly > because it is the *most* foreign of the extant systems I have to use, but > maybe more because it is sooo successful (popular) amongst the Muggles and > the "English Majors" (as we techs like to say dismissively) and the Lawyers > and the MBAs and ... all those I like to pretend to be better than (until I > need some help from *their* specialties, of course)! > My primary objection to M$ is their long, well-earned history of monopolistic business practice, and their "embrace, devour, and kill", in that order methodology of taking out competition as part of their attempt to maintain market dominance. Plus, their advertising sucks. Oh, and that's the primary reason that I dislike "The Other Evil Empire" as well. The marketing approach, I mean, not the advertising. Also, I just don't like the Mac interface. Never have. > > - Old Dog > I'm older than you, Stevie... > > > Edward Angel wrote at 02/08/2013 08:02 AM: >> >>> Although it might seem that I would have a similar view as Bruce >>> since we both support 3D graphics for educational purposes, my >>> experience is exactly the opposite of Bruce's. [...] >>> >> Perhaps it's my own abstraction run amok, but this whole discussion >> reminds me of the recent one about Doug's friends Dick and Bart: >> >> glen wrote at 01/15/2013 03:37 PM: >> >>> I suspect Dick had methods he invented for his astrophysics and Bart >>> invented methods for ... billing people. 8^) And I suspect they >>> were competent with those tools. But I also suspect those tools did >>> not translate well to non-astrophysicists or non-lawyers ... or >>> perhaps even very many astrophysicists or very many lawyers. >>> >> Forget complexity (kind or degree), the metric is universality. The >> more expressive a tool, the less likely any particular use case for the >> tool will apply across a large cohort. The less expressive a tool, the >> more likely a particular use case will translate, at least between >> commonly structured individuals. >> >> This discussion ranges over a very limited set of highly expressive >> tools. It makes complete sense that a particular use case for, say, a >> Mac would not translate between even very similar users. >> >> The beauty of on OS, a GUI, or a tightly coupled monolithically >> integrated toolchain is that it _limits_ the universality of the tool, >> thereby making it easier to translate any particular use case amongst >> the members of a cohort. If you're not in that cohort, well, tough luck >> for you ... You have to puncture the monolithic toolchain, the GUI, or >> the OS to get what you want. (E.g. Marcus' description of analyzing to >> the bottom.) You need a more expressive tool in order to formulate and >> satisfy your use case. >> >> If you're belligerent and want to retain the monolith, but coerce it >> into a suboptimal satisficing for your compromised use case, then you >> have to continually react to the slight changes in the toolchain. Your >> compromised use case (and its generating machinery) is _fragile_ to >> changes in context. >> >> >> > > ==============================**============================== > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe > http://redfish.com/mailman/**listinfo/friam_redfish.com<http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com> > -- *Doug Roberts d...@parrot-farm.net* *http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins*<http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins> * <http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins> 505-455-7333 - Office 505-672-8213 - Mobile*
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
