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I resisted commenting on this the first time, but I now can't keep still. (Which, to close a circle, is another significant part of why I quit usenet.) Maybe it's just because I'm thinking about going to PRINT 05 tomorrow, but I can't let this paper comparison lie. Here's the thing: paper's generally whitish, yes, but it's not because white backgrounds are inherently better. It's because that's what's most practical with the particular technology you're using (i.e., wood pulp and graphite or pigment). So if you want to make arguments about light window backgrounds working better than dark with video technology, help yourself -- at that point it's quite simply a matter of taste -- but the paper argument really doesn't carry you on it because it's not the same thing at all. It's not even the same color model. I like my books on light (preferably not white) paper, and my terminal on a dark (preferably not black) window. Furthermore I like my engravings on basalt or granite, or perhaps limestone, and my tempera on wet plaster. I don't really see this as inconsistent. When someone invents a high-speed digital display medium that works with reflected light and subtractive color, we can revisit it. ObHate: I like how the new Powerbooks have this two-finger scroll action thing in the trackpad. It's nice, especially now that a measurable percentage of the modern life involves scrolling a relatively short but heavily-quilted roll of toilet paper labelled "Intarweb" up and down. Takes a little acclimation, but it's very handy and it didn't take me long to expect it just to work on every laptop I use. Unfortunately that means I use it all the time, instead of keyboarding around. So I'm looking at the PRINT 05 web site, and they have this cute (grr) little scrolling marquee thing to list the highlights, and as I two-finger-scroll down the page, my cursor hovers over the marquee, and suddenly the toilet paper stops moving, dead. To make it go again I have to move my hand to specific places instead of gesticulating vaguely, and that's just not cool since it's quite obvious what I mean. It's not even a div or a frame with a scrollbar -- at least I can understand the conflict of intention that leads to that problem, and normally I can just scroll through the inner scrollbox and get back to the outer, so it's not such a big deal. This is just a box full of text in javascripty motion... right? No, it's a Java applet, so it can steal all my input device functions and replace them with dead nothing. Who honestly thought it was a good plan to lay a wholly distinct UI paradigm right in the middle of another one, hmm? Bloody designers. There's a place in hell for you people among the fraudulent, somewhere between thieves and counterfeiters, which is one circle deeper than where I'll be after I find you and poke little holes in your necks with your own drawing tablet pens. Come to think of it, I'll bet your special place is right there alongside the advertising people I was lambasting this evening in the grocery after spotting "Pure Zer0" on the broad side of a six-pack of Diet Gut Solvent. Somebody tell me what in the name of Ogilvy & Mather "pure zero" is supposed to mean. It doesn't even make me want some, it just mocks the sensibilities of anyone whose semantic skills have developed past the Mesolithic period. Designers! Advertisers! Stop trying to think outside your boxes. I swear this is the kind of "creativity" that destroys civilizations. Apparently I need to get a blog or something. Speaking of mocking semantic skills. -- -D. dgc@xxxxxxxx.xxx NSIT University of ChicagoThere's stuff above here
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