It's a common belief that old people don't understand computers, and 
young people are all computer whizz kids. Certainly it's the case that 
my parents could never ever figure out how to program the VHS machine to 
actually record stuff at an appointed time, whereas having read the 
instructions, I always found this to be pretty easy. (Mind you, I often 
had to double-check the instructions; usually these things aren't very 
"obvious" without consulting the manual first.)

My dad taught me to program in C64 BASIC. Or rather, he dictated a 
program to me, and I'm just the one who typed it in. Later I sat down 
and read the C64 manual from cover to cover. (No mean feat for a kid who 
was nearly illiterate.) Initially I found it hard figuring out where to 
start, and I stayed up until ridiculously late at night on many 
occasions trying to get a broken chain of logic to work by repeatedly 
hitting it (i.e., tweaking minor trivial details like loop endpoints, 
endlessly trying all possible combinations to see if any of them work). 
But eventually I learned that when a program doesn't work, the correct 
thing to do is to step back and look at what isn't working, why it 
doesn't work, and how to make a better design.

We didn't have computers at school. (They /were/ a relatively new 
commercial product, after all.) When they eventually got some, it fell 
to the school's Religious Education teacher (no, seriously) to "teach us 
about computers". I remember them well: a set of RM Nimbus 80186 
systems. Each had dual floppy disk drives, and we had a single colour 
dot matrix printer to share between them all.

By this point, I had already moved on from BASIC to Pascal, using both 
Borland's TurboPascal 5.5 for MS-DOS, and on my Amiga Hi-Speed Pascal 
(who's libraries are nearly identical to TurboPascal, despite the rather 
different hardware). So say I knew more than the teacher did would be an 
understatement.

(I still recall an incident where I said you shouldn't unplug the 
printer from one machine and into another while both the printer and the 
computers were switched on because it might cause electrical damage. The 
teacher told me that the manual warned you not to unplug the printer 
while the PC is turned on because it might cause physical damage to the 
socket, which is why we always unpluged it from the printer end instead. 
WTF?)

I could continue with such anecdotes. Suffice it to say, I've always 
been good with computers, computer technology, and modern electronics in 
general. And a lot of the other people around me, particularly older 
people, haven't been. I guess I felt a certain sense of smugness about that.

These days, I don't feel so smug. In fact, I'm almost beginning to feel 
that the next generation is overtaking *me*. o_O

There are several new-fangled things that I really just don't "get". 
Allow me to list some examples:



What, in the name of God, is an "app"?

Once upon a time, you had the "operating system", which runs the 
machine, and then you had various "application programs" or just 
"applications", which address real-world problem domains.

Java gave us "applets", those pointless Tic-Tac-Toe example programs 
which are supposed to prove how fantastic and important Java is. But now 
the mobile revolution has given us "apps".

Suppose, for example, that you are somehow so stupendously rich that you 
can not only afford to /buy/ an iPhone but also to pay the bills for it. 
Through mechanisms which I do not really understand at all [Jesus Christ 
I feel old!], it is apparently somehow possible to access the Internet 
with such a device. (Presumably that's part of why it's so damned 
expensive - along with the obvious fact that it's extremely shiny.)

Now, if you're a maths nerd like me, you might know about Wolfram Alpha, 
the website where any question, no matter how pointless, can be 
submitted to Wolfram's Mathematica software and Wolfram's huge data 
repository to try to answer your question. It's a neat idea, although 
damned if I can think of a single /useful/ purpose for it. (Especially 
since Wolfram seem to be adding more and more restrictions to what you 

full copy of Mathematica, after all...)

Anyone, anywhere [except China] can visit this website and ask it 
pointless questions. So far, so good.

Here's where it gets weird: For a mere $35, you can buy the "Wolfram 
Alpha app" for your iPhone, which lets you access the power of Wolfram 
Alpha. Or you could, you know, visit the website for free, like 
everybody else is already doing. WTF?



Next up, the "netbook". Now the idea behind this one is pretty simple. 
If you want a portable computer, you can buy a laptop. But laptops are 
pretty expensive, especially if you want one that's any good. Now 
actually, it turns out a lot of people just want something to surf the 
Internet with. And you don't actually /need/ an 8-core Intel Sandy 
Bridge EP with 8GB triple-channel RAM and a high-end discrete GPU just 
to surf the net. Hell, you don't even "really" need an entire OS; just a 
web browser.

So - the idea goes - you can buy a netbook instead. It's like a laptop, 
but it's usually physically smaller, has web-oriented software that's 
simpler to use, has a much lower technical specification, and 
consequently is much cheaper than a real laptop. Because, if you just 
want to surf, you don't need the higher spec.

That's the theory. The trouble is, as best as I can tell, netbooks /do/ 
have stripped-down software, lower specification, and smaller size. They 
also have EXACTLY THE SAME PRICE as a laptop. (!)

Given that the entire /point/ of a netbook is to be a cheaper 
alternative to a laptop for people who don't need the extra power, the 
fact that it isn't any cheaper seems like a pretty big deal. Again, WTF?



Then we come to things like Twitter. Actually, before I get into this, I 
should probably back up a bit.

There was a long time when I couldn't figure out what the hell the 
/point/ of all this "social media" stuff was. This is probably partly 
because I don't have any friends. But every such site I got bullied into 
joining (required XKCD quote: http://xkcd.com/146/ ) was a complete 
waste of time. You create a profile, fill out a bunch of fields, and 
that's it. There's nothing to "do" after that.

On top of this, all of these sites were /shockingly/ unreliable and 
buggy. I can't even express how useless they were. They just flat-out 
DID NOT WORK PROPERLY. I've never seen such a thing from a /website/ 
before. You would have thought there couldn't be too many things that 
could go wrong with a mere web page. You would be wrong, apparently.

And then I joined Facebook. /This/ actually has a point. You can use it 
to /talk/ to people. You can arrange meetings. You can share any 
interesting photos you might have. You can ask people for opinions, etc. 
I'm not the type of person to sit on Facebook all day (I have far more 
interesting things to do), but it does at least do /something/ remotely 
useful.

Twitter, on the other hand, baffles me. It's, like, this huge Internet 
phenomenon. Your corporation is /nothing/ unless it's on Twitter. And 
yet... Well, let me put it this way. I once had this conversation with 
my dad:

Dad: So what *is* Twitter then?
Me: You know how on Facebook you can post your status?
Dad: Yeah?
Me: THAT'S ALL TWITTER DOES!!
Dad: ...WTF?

Not only that, but the few times I've actually been on Twitter, half the 
posts are replies to other people's posts, and there is LITERALLY NO WAY 
to find out what they're replies to. (!) Seriously, the most basic, most 
immediately obvious thing, the very first thing I tried to do, Twitter 
can't do. WTF?



Similar to the Netbook, we have episodic games. The idea, apparently, is 
to release smaller games more often for a lower price, rather than 
larger games less often for a higher price.

Personally, /all/ of my favourite games have been vast monolithic 
adventures. The idea of getting a game in little dribs and drabs is 
highly unappealing to me. They say how people are "too busy" now to play 
big monolithic games. Then again, "they" also say that any game without 
an online multiplayer component is commercially unviable. And then along 
comes Skyrim... :-P

(In a similar manner, while I do enjoy watching a good TV series, 
nothing compares to a good film. You know, a big monolithic video 
experience as opposed to an episodic one.)

Most puzzlingly of all, Valve seem to have mastered the "smaller games" 
part, but don't seem to have grasped the "more often" or "cheaper" 
parts. WTF?



Since we're here, I might as well ask: the iPad. Sure, I mean, I know 
what it /is/, but... why? What is it /for/? Can anyone articulate a 
coherent explanation? You can't use it as a phone, you can't easily type 
stuff on it, it's too big to easily carry around... so what can you 
actually do with the thing? (I agree, it is very, VERY shiny, and that's 
cool. But there has to be a bit more than that to justify the 
astronomical price tag...)

Post a reply to this message

Orchid Win7 v1 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> I could continue with such anecdotes. Suffice it to say, I've always
> been good with computers, computer technology, and modern electronics in
> general. And a lot of the other people around me, particularly older
> people, haven't been. I guess I felt a certain sense of smugness about that.
>
> These days, I don't feel so smug. In fact, I'm almost beginning to feel
> that the next generation is overtaking *me*. o_O

heh, you can't wait to know how it feels when the 40's are close.

> What, in the name of God, is an "app"?
>
> Once upon a time, you had the "operating system", which runs the
> machine, and then you had various "application programs" or just
> "applications", which address real-world problem domains.
>
> Java gave us "applets", those pointless Tic-Tac-Toe example programs
> which are supposed to prove how fantastic and important Java is. But now
> the mobile revolution has given us "apps".

short for application.  It's an application program running under mobile OSes
such as iOS or Android.

Apple was the one to spread this word, part of its "App Store" which can be read
as either application or apple.

> Suppose, for example, that you are somehow so stupendously rich that you
> can not only afford to /buy/ an iPhone but also to pay the bills for it.

or you can buy a cheap Android which is still miles ahead of older dumbphones.

> Through mechanisms which I do not really understand at all [Jesus Christ
> I feel old!], it is apparently somehow possible to access the Internet
> with such a device. (Presumably that's part of why it's so damned
> expensive - along with the obvious fact that it's extremely shiny.)

they come with a minimodem requiring a 2G/3G/4G chip from cellphone carriers
companies to operate.


> Now, if you're a maths nerd like me, you might know about Wolfram Alpha,
> the website where any question, no matter how pointless, can be
> submitted to Wolfram's Mathematica software and Wolfram's huge data
> repository to try to answer your question. It's a neat idea, although
> damned if I can think of a single /useful/ purpose for it. (Especially
> since Wolfram seem to be adding more and more restrictions to what you

> full copy of Mathematica, after all...)
>
> Anyone, anywhere [except China] can visit this website and ask it
> pointless questions. So far, so good.
>
> Here's where it gets weird: For a mere $35, you can buy the "Wolfram
> Alpha app" for your iPhone, which lets you access the power of Wolfram
> Alpha. Or you could, you know, visit the website for free, like
> everybody else is already doing. WTF?

yes, most "apps" are just stupid conversions of web pages.  You heard it right:
Jobs was the man able to sell people converted web pages for a fee.

that said, there are many apps that do a lot more than just offer a better web
form.  Comics reading, games, apps dealing with maps and GPS info etc.


> That's the theory. The trouble is, as best as I can tell, netbooks /do/
> have stripped-down software, lower specification, and smaller size. They
> also have EXACTLY THE SAME PRICE as a laptop. (!)

no, they're a tad cheaper.  At least when compared to good laptops, not cheapo
breako ones.


> Dad: So what *is* Twitter then?
> Me: You know how on Facebook you can post your status?
> Dad: Yeah?
> Me: THAT'S ALL TWITTER DOES!!
> Dad: ...WTF?

would you be sad if I told you some of my coworkers think it's useful as a news
aggregator of sorts?  Yes, my IT coworkers don't know RSS aggregators.  pretty
sad indeed.



> Not only that, but the few times I've actually been on Twitter, half the
> posts are replies to other people's posts, and there is LITERALLY NO WAY
> to find out what they're replies to. (!) Seriously, the most basic, most
> immediately obvious thing, the very first thing I tried to do, Twitter
> can't do. WTF?

reading twitter is like entering a bird jailhouse full of parrots, all repeating
the same cries over and over.


> Since we're here, I might as well ask: the iPad. Sure, I mean, I know
> what it /is/, but... why? What is it /for/? Can anyone articulate a
> coherent explanation? You can't use it as a phone, you can't easily type
> stuff on it, it's too big to easily carry around... so what can you
> actually do with the thing? (I agree, it is very, VERY shiny, and that's
> cool. But there has to be a bit more than that to justify the
> astronomical price tag...)

I don't dig tablets either.  I picture them either as a big phoneless smartphone
or a keyboardless laptop, both far more useful.  Even taking pictures with it is
silly.  As it stands, it's made only for audio-visual consumption.  Even reading
isn't all that great.

I'll dig them when they come with e-ink screens and a stylus so you can actually
write and draw (and read comfortably).

Post a reply to this message

On 9/2/2012 10:01, nemesis wrote:
> I'll dig them when they come with e-ink screens and a stylus so you can actually
> write and draw (and read comfortably).

We have those. They're called Tablet PCs. They were a commercial failure, 
but I love mine. :-)

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Oh no! We're out of code juice!"
   "Don't panic. There's beans and filters
    in the cabinet."

Post a reply to this message

Orchid Win7 v1 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> Since we're here, I might as well ask: the iPad. Sure, I mean, I know 
> what it /is/, but... why? What is it /for/? Can anyone articulate a 
> coherent explanation? You can't use it as a phone, you can't easily type 
> stuff on it, it's too big to easily carry around... so what can you 
> actually do with the thing? (I agree, it is very, VERY shiny, and that's 
> cool. But there has to be a bit more than that to justify the 
> astronomical price tag...)

You can type quite well with the iPad, actually. (The iPhone is a bit more
difficult because it's so small, but it's not very difficult. Heck, there
are people who type faster on an iPhone than you type with a PC keyboard.
And they are using only their thumbs.)

The iPad is a really decent gaming platform, completely on par with the actual
modern portable consoles. There are also tons of utility applications that
you can run on it. (There are several hundreds of thousands of applications
that have been designed explicitly for the iPad. At least some percentage of
them are actually quite good, so there literally are thousands of really good
apps and games for it, most of which are explicitly designed for the big
touchscreen that the device offers.)

You can surf the internet, you can watch movies (watching a movie is as
easy as just bying it on iTunes and playing it), you can read books, you
can check your email, facebook, twitter, whatnot, you can take and edit
photos and video (there are actually pretty decent video editing software
for the iPad). You can even compose music. All these things can be done on a
decent smartphone as well, but the big screen really makes a huge difference,
especially when surfing, playing games or watching movies. (If you have ever
used the internet with a smartphone for some time, and then try it with the
iPad, the smartphone will start feeling *awful* because of the small screen.)

The device is larger than a phone, but smaller than a laptop. If you are
the kind of person who carries a laptop, the iPad wouldn't be a problem
at all.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

nemesis <nam### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> I'll dig them when they come with e-ink screens and a stylus so you can actually
> write and draw (and read comfortably).

Try multitouching with a stylus.

(You *can* use the iPad with a stylus. Of course it needs to be specifically
designed for it to work with the finger detection technology, but once you
get one of those, they work quite well. The iPad has pretty accurate detection
hardware.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

On 2012-09-02 13:36, Darren New wrote:
> We have those. They're called Tablet PCs. They were a commercial
> failure, but I love mine. :-)

Ditto.  Only thing that'd be be better is if it were thinner, and had 
higher resolution.

Oh wait, MS is coming out with that in a few months.  With 
pressure-sensitive stylus input (something the iPad doesn't have).  Too 
bad I won't be able to afford one anymore, even if they are only $300 or 
whatever.

Actually there are a few other brands that have that, already, but...the 
MS thing should be nice.

--
Tim Cook
http://empyrean.sjcook.com

Post a reply to this message

> Through mechanisms which I do not really understand at all [Jesus Christ
> I feel old!], it is apparently somehow possible to access the Internet
> with such a device. (Presumably that's part of why it's so damned
> expensive - along with the obvious fact that it's extremely shiny.)
>
lol Mostly, its a marriage of of a TCP/IP type network thing, which maps
your phone to their network, using an ID, and a technology patented way
back in WWII, which the woman who came up with it had intended to be
used to circumvent German attempts to scramble torpedo guidance. The
military proved to be total morons (it was rejected and never used
during the war, or even after, for decades), but the original concept
was that you have something about the size of a pocket watch, on both
the torpedoes receiver, and the transmitter, then you would feed in a
bit of paper, at the same time, into both, which was similar to a punch
card. Each "hole" would cause the frequency to change, basically hopping
from one to the next, so the enemy couldn't pinpoint which one you where
using, and jam it. The same identical, save in electronic form,
technology is at the center of cell tower systems. Otherwise, you are
just using a lot of antennae, listening to all those frequencies, then
passing data back and forth, and into the main network, via the same
sort of system the internet itself uses to work out which set of servers
to pass your information through, to get from, say from Google to you,
and to send your requests to the right places.

If anything, since cell phones are mobile, their system can't do what
the internet has done, and undermine its flexibility, by hard coding
some routes into the network paths (which is why one server can go down
now, and you can't get there from here any more). Since the networks
work almost exactly the same though, in terms of digital packets, its
trivial to translate your "internet" address to a "cell" address, and 
pass the messages to the right locations.

Post a reply to this message

Tim Cook <z99### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> On 2012-09-02 13:36, Darren New wrote:
> > We have those. They're called Tablet PCs. They were a commercial
> > failure, but I love mine. :-)
>
> Ditto.  Only thing that'd be be better is if it were thinner, and had
> higher resolution.]]

isn't that merely a desktop PC with a touch screen layer upon the screen
display?

surely a failure, as touch is kinda pointless when the screen is a bit far from
your reach (and you need to rise your arms) and it simply isn't a tablet.

> Oh wait, MS is coming out with that in a few months.  With
> pressure-sensitive stylus input (something the iPad doesn't have).  Too
> bad I won't be able to afford one anymore, even if they are only $300 or
> whatever.

it's Surface, isn't it?

I still prefer my wacom "tablet".  It feels like paper.  Writing on glass is not
that fun.

Post a reply to this message

On 2012-09-02 22:24, nemesis wrote:
> Tim Cook <z99### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
>> Ditto.  Only thing that'd be be better is if it were thinner, and had
>> higher resolution.]]
>
> isn't that merely a desktop PC with a touch screen layer upon the screen
> display?

Actually, I'm not so much into wanting touch, unless it's smart enough 
to know that I'm laying my hand on the thing while drawing with the 
stylus.  Though being able to use the smudge tool with my finger would 
be cool.

> it's Surface, isn't it?

Think so, yeah.

> I still prefer my wacom "tablet".  It feels like paper.  Writing on glass is not
> that fun.

The good Tablet PCs use Wacom for their interface...the last Wacom 
tablet I used that was separate was the Graphire (original series), and 
I've never used anything more advanced, since that's basically what's 
inside Tablet PCs, functionality-wise.  256 levels of pressure, no 
tilt/direction sensing.

I hear the textured tablet surfaces chew through nibs like candy.  I've 
never replaced my Tablet PC stylus nib yet...

--
Tim Cook
http://empyrean.sjcook.com

Post a reply to this message

On Sun, 02 Sep 2012 23:24:05 -0400, nemesis wrote:

> I still prefer my wacom "tablet".  It feels like paper.  Writing on
> glass is not that fun.

I concur with that.  Got myself an Intuos4 M a couple years ago and I 
really like it.

Jim

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