Re: [OT] How far have we come?
Irv, you started this...
David et al,
From: "David Cuny" <dcuny at LANSET.COM>
> Time and motion studies have found that, for most people, it's actually
> faster to use the mouse than it is to use the keyboard. To people like you
> and I who claim the keyboard is actually faster, these they reply (I'm not
> making this up!) that there's some sort of 'lost time' amnesia effect
where
> we literally don't remember the time it takes us to perform these actions,
> making them only *appear* to be faster.
>
> (...insert twilight zone theme here...)
>
> -- David Cuny
Time and motion studies have found that it's faster, more comfortable and
safer to walk every morning some 25 blocks to work after I take my youngest
to school, than to ride a variety of buses, subways or even taxis. Yet every
time I mention this I get glazed looks. People will do what they want (or,
most likely, what they've been told they want), regardless. That is, until
an uncaring Universe hits them below the belly. Then you're a world-saver.
For about five minutes.
Then Irv Mullins wrote:
> Faster to use the mouse for what? - that should be the question.
As we all know, the questions should be, What are my needs? How can I best
fulfill them? Good for making money, good for getting laid, good for a
computer interface. Using the mouse for everything is like driving your car
to the bathroom, just because you have one. (A car. I hope you all have a
bathroom).
Good software designers know this. Since they have to make a living, they
give you the mouse, but they also give you choices. One of the reasons I
find IrfanView extremely practical is because it can be closed with the Esc
key. Sounds familiar?
The Ray Smith:
> There are obviously a small percentage of people who don't use MS software
and for those people ... well done!
The sad side is that MS has elevated itself into a category of its own. Yet
some of its products are good, some are very good, and some aren't worth the
trouble. Just like everyone else's. Personally, I find the Internet Explorer
far faster and reliable than Netscape, but then StarOffice (even the Windows
version) is every bit as good as MSIE. So is Opera. Yet most users, buyers,
vendors and magazine editors seem convinced that there's Microsoft, and
there's a bunch of wannabes. The result: individuals and companies are
shelling out hundreds and even thousands of dollars a year as if it were
unavoidable, when most of the time they don't really need it, and -even when
they do- there's such a lot of good freeware around.
And rforno...
> Anyway, it's strange that nobody mentioned the DOS batch facility, which
luckily still can be used under Windows... if one understands DOS.
A few days ago I mentioned 4DOS and Take Command. You can't get more batchy.
They can do DOS (including file i/o), they can launch Windows apps,
everything you could possibly need. 4DOS has a batch-to-memory facility that
lifts the whole prog into RAM and executes it, unlike MS-DOS batch that goes
back and reads the file every time an instruction has been executed.
And perhaps therein lies the problem. In some areas MS went too far astray,
required too much hardware, doesn't let you streamline their apps at your
convenience, and so on. And, on the other side, it didn't go far enough, so
it didn't really replace text mode and command line, just dressed them some,
but at what expense!
Suggestion for release 25.8: I want a computer I can talk to. I could even
stand it if it talked back...
Gerardo
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