Saturday, October 30, 1999, 9:35:22 PM, Thomas wrote:
> A niche market is still a market, but I agree with you in principle.
A niche market, when the target isn't the lowest common denominator, does
not much resemble the "bad" influences the general market exudes on products.
> I'm thinking about those who would buy the support to go with it, e.g. from
> Red Hat.
Red Hat sells support. The OS development is not tied to the cash.
> define software only as "applications"? What then is the OS? Nowadays
> not hardwired any more. (Is that a news flash for you? ;-))
Basically, yes. After having my OS die only because of hardware failure I
don't pay it much mind anymore.
> I confess, my Pascal experience is about 15 years old, so someone
> might have a solution in the meantime. What you write further down
> about Perl, that's neat.
Ahhhh, yes. I remember Pascal from those days. Borland's Turbo Pascal 3
was what I started on. I find it ironic that TP3 didn't have an IDE and I was
upset that I had to use the command line to get things done. I jumped on TP4
so fast because of its IDE. How-a-days I'm happy with Perl and working
outside an IDE.
> mistake. That's what I find frustrating. I think it's a definition of
> the word "frustrating".
Nah, the definition is the same. It is where people place the blame that
causes the problem. When I saw the output in the file was what I was asking
the debugger to print I knew instantly what was going on. I hadn't expected
it, really, but once I recognized what was going on I just did a V-8 headslap
because it was logical and staring me right in the face.
OTOH, a lot of programs which are designed for the "masses" and to be
"easy-to-use" do some really strange things which are not logically
consistent. I have to spend more time learning the quirks as they come up
than learning the logic and being able to make the assumptions from there.
> associated with the machine. People make mistakes yeah: and who do you
> think programmes the computer? Builds the computer? My friend got a
> phone bill for 13,000.-DM - "Computers don't make mistakes"? So should
> he just have paid up?
No, because obviously there was an error made by a human along the line.
Was the computer incorrect in billing him because some tech somewhere opened a
line and left it open that got billed to him? No. The tech was incorrect.
I will grant that there are times (Pentium bug, anyone?) when the machine
is not correct. However, considering the number of operations that a computer
does such instances stick out like a sore thumb (Pentium bug, anyone?) and you
can obviously spot it.
What that statement was meant to refute was the entire notion that the
general public seems to exude that whenever there is a mistake, ever, it is
the computer's fault. They fail to see that of the machine as a while the
part that is most apt to "make a mistake" is the interface between chair and
keyboard.
> You seem to have a faster connection than I, logging in from Asia to
> Europe.... will you admit that voice control would be a simplication?
Nope. Logging in is separate of banking. You can log in and not bank,
for example. For the record I have a cablemodem so my connection never goes
down.
> Or at least a neat luxury?
Nope.
> I could tell you about some bedroom computer that turned on the music upon
> the voice command "music" and closed the curtains etc, but that might go too
> far. If you prefer your keyboard over voice control, I don't think anybody
> will take it away from you. "Darling, let me just press a few keys:
> clickadi-clakc, clackerioclick..." translation: opening CD Programme,
> selecting options, press "go" [whatever] - really romantic :-D
I could also tell you about something called a "remote control" for
another things called a "stereo". Now, let's compare your method to mine.
Yours:
While kissing your lover you mumbled into her mouth, "mrmrmrrmmmph." The
computer steadfastly does nothing as it does not speak tongue-twisted
mumbling. So you break the kiss and breathlessly call out, "Music." However,
since the computer is thrown off by the different in how you said it, it does
nothing. So now you can either extract yourself from your lover's arms and do
it manually or calm down so you can say the word close enough to what the
computer has been programmed to hear.
Mine:
While kissing my lover I reach around her back. By touch I pick up my
remote, point it towards the stereo, press play, toss the remote over my back
and attack her to the smooooth rhythms of Barry White (Oh, yeah, baby, can you
feel it?).
Sure, voice control is a peachy keen geek toy. This geek, however, is not
impressed enough with it to give it up for all but a select few things. About
the only one is games because I think it would be much easier for me to call
out "Shields!" than to look for the key on my keyboard to perform that
function.
Now, for some reality in this whole discussion on voice activated
discussion. For all the hoopla surrounding it, it does not work as you have
been stating. In fact, it won't work that way for years. So right now it is,
at best, a geek-toy or something to provide access to the disabled. Beyond
that, it is neat, yeah, but it will only frustrate the end user more than help
because it is quite unreliable. I like the fun movies as much as the next
guy, but I recognize that it is a LOOOOOONG way off.
> Provided you have booted up your box, have the time to sit in front of
> it and have logged into the internet, that sounds right. How about I'm
> coning home, taking my winter coat off, walk to the kitchen and just
> drop the words to the computer, followed by "turn up the heating"?
See above.
--
Steve C. Lamb | I'm your priest, I'm your shrink, I'm your
ICQ: 5107343 | main connection to the switchboard of souls.
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