As a professional writer, I don't find this very useful. This software doesn't solve any actual problems I have ever had in journalism, book writing, book editing, fiction writing, or blogging. It is not any easier to do all of this in this way than it is with existing tools, except in the end look at what we're left with in your new application... a complete and total disorganized mess. I don't even want to touch that document after you've pulled it apart and screwed it all up like that. There is no substitute for a rewrite.
It seems like this was designed by a software developer who imagined potential problems that writers have, while desperately looking for a cool new way to use multi-touch.
So let me tell you about the actual problems I have as a professional writer. Maybe some/most/all of them are unique to me -- I don't really know.
1. Consistent access to the same documents across multiple devices, without storing them on any one specific device. I have solved this problem with SpiderOak, and by adjusting my file formats and toolsets across all devices.
2. Touchpad keyboards aren't big enough, or accurate enough for me. It is very difficult to write at the speed of thought on a touchscreen device. I can type much faster on a tactile keyboard, and I can always type faster than I can handwrite, even in shorthand.
3. Font hell. When you go to publish something from a word processor or PDF generator, you must have a license for all of the fonts you use. If you want to use open source fonts, that's fine -- maybe even preferable -- but then you have to use a clever font replacement scheme (which doesn't work for me), or embed the fonts in the document. Embedding fonts takes up a huge amount of space, and there is always one you forget (the page numbers in the footer, the title, even places that don't seem to have any text).
4. Character set encoding hell. Special characters don't translate well across multiple applications. Especially if you are writing in Word and pasting into blog software.
As a writer, I want to write. I don't want to learn a new interface. I do not want to use a multi-touch screen because the fastest form of written communication I've ever experienced is already available to me. Not every old paradigm is bad; not every old design is begging for improvement.
I want to have very little hassle when it comes to editing, publishing, and backup/version control. Can you solve that problem for me? Like, make LyX or LibreOffice save to easily accessible yet secure private cloud storage with rollback capabilities, output directly to CreateSpace, Lulu, and other publishing services without having to embed fonts or screw with formatting and templating?
I already know I'm going to be buried for saying this, so just click the arrow now and save yourself the trouble of reading.
If someone had written an article like this about PJ, they would be relentlessly attacked from all angles, and PJ would bring out her usual "It must be Microsoft/SCO/Satan behind this." Every time someone questions her motives, her income sources, her fact sources, her opinions, her attacks on her enemies and other disfavored individuals (Mueller being a longtime critic of hers), she pulls the "You must be working for the bad guys" line. Every person who says anything in disagreement with PJ is assumed to be working for Microsoft, SCO, Oracle, or whomever the bad guy du jour is. This is McCarthyism on the Internet.
Journalists have been silenced, ostracized, and fired for asking questions about her. Imagine if this were a male government official instead of an anonymous blogger with a female persona (how perfectly crafted to manipulate geeks!) The Linux/OSS journalism "community" protects her at all costs. Journalists are not supposed to protect anyone; they are supposed to shed light on all of the dark corners of the world. There are no saints. You can't ethically be a member of the club that you're covering.
The only things you know about PJ and Groklaw are the things that PJ has published on Groklaw. That doesn't bother you? It doesn't raise any skepticism? PJ was closely involved with the founding of OSRM, which sells open source compliance services to software companies. No one suspects her of being "bought and paid for" because of this, but we're supposed to think Florian Mueller is an Oracle shill because they paid him to do some analysis work independent of his blogging?
It's not time, it's the number of people. There is a small range of numbers that make a valid community. Too few and there's no discussion. Too many, and they all compete to be heard like screaming children in a crowded lunchroom. It's a lot like a volleyball team. 1v1 doesn't work, 2v2 is meh, 3v3 up to 8v8 is fun. Any more than that and there are too many people and the communication process is too complex. Also, MMO game servers suffer from the same problems even though there is a hard limit to guild size and server population. There is no minimum, which sucks, and the maximum involves queue times and lag.
Here's a free startup idea for someone: Design an analytic process that determines the perfect userbase range for a successful community. It would have to scale according to niche. This would apply actual numeric goals for marketing campaigns. Instead of "the sky is the limit!" which we know is not true, you could provide an actual target and cut off membership (or start a second instance with an isolated userbase) at the maximum number.
Okay, now someone else do it, because I'm not smart enough.
The article says that OpenGL suffers from a lack of good documentation. Can anyone else comment on this? What kind of docs specifically would help drive OpenGL adoption? Case studies? A developer's guide? Examples for the existing API doc? A sample application?
First day on the Internet? This has been a problem for more than a decade! Reviews of tweaked engineering sample hardware and beta pre-release software have blighted online journalism since the big bang. Motherboard and video card reviews exist entirely in a fake reality.
All this time, you never asked who was pulling PJ's strings? Every time someone questions her motives, methods, or anything else about her, the communist witch hunt to discover who is funding her criticism begins, but nobody ever asks how someone who posts stories over a 20 hour period is making her living.
The fact that your comment was upvoted is a testament to the uselessness of the voting system on this site. That sucks -- I thought the people here were a little smarter and higher class than Reddit or Digg.
Look, PJ is not the paragon of virtue that you think she is. I know that is an uncomfortable thing for you to hear, and it must break your heart to know that she's just as dirty and underhanded as the people she attacks, but downvoting won't make the truth go away.
She wasn't quoted by any major media that I knew of. In the open source/Linux media she was quoted now and then. Specifically, I interviewed her a couple of times. But there was a universal gag order on writing about Groklaw or PJ.
I know. I was there. I was one of those journalists.
Groklaw was like a big, angry shark gobbling up all of the material that a half-dozen journalists in open source and technology journalism would have loved to cover, had they not been emasculated by editors who were in love with PJ. It was a big ego game for her, not to achieve fame, but to achieve some level of personal satisfaction. It was always my hunch that she was filling some empty void in her life with Groklaw -- mommy and daddy made her feel useless, so Groklaw was her way of fighting back. Or she had an abusive husband and Groklaw was her only power in the world. Whatever. It doesn't matter now.
Apparently all the PJ lovers missed the posts where she promoted religion, and called for the censorship of OSTG/OSDN journalists because NewsForge published an editorial about being okay with using proprietary software, and told people that it wasn't okay for kids to believe in Santa Claus. PJ executed hit jobs on anyone who publicly disagreed with her or her ideology.
She reveled in that power. She had the entire tech journalism establishment by the balls, and she wasn't afraid to use that to satisfy her personal vendettas. Anybody who questioned PJ in the least was accused from every angle of being a Microsoft or SCO shill, or taking money from some front company. Anyone who asked who PJ was and how she was making her living (perfectly valid questions -- the same ones she asked of everyone who spoke out against her or did anything she didn't like) was subjected to an Anonymous-style attack from her community of blind followers. One person even claimed to have been the victim of arson at the hands of a Groklaw fan, but nobody could print those stories because PJ had a stranglehold on the tech news publishers. Nobody was allowed to publish anything about Groklaw.
Except of course the one rogue publication that did the same thing to PJ that she did to her enemies. PJ deserved what Maureen O'Gara dished up to her -- and more. There were so few actual journalists in that industry anyway... everyone was either starfucking Groklaw and promoting Linux and the FSF with fluff pieces, or they were prevented by editors from chasing stories that showed those shadow-gods in a negative light. Had Groklaw never existed, open source and Linux journalism would have been so much better for it... there would have been real story-chasers, not free software worshippers and fanboys.
Ha! The only reason I clicked on Comments here was to say, "I feel the same way about Reddit that this guy does about Twitter." Paid for Reddit gold, got the same lousy site availability.
I used to be in Web publishing. I understand how difficult it is to make money off of smart people on the Web. They know how to block your ads, and even if they refuse to block them, they ignore them. The real money is in stupid people who use IE6 and click on everything that blinks.
If it were easy to figure this shit out, there would be a lot more valid competition.
It seems like this was designed by a software developer who imagined potential problems that writers have, while desperately looking for a cool new way to use multi-touch.
So let me tell you about the actual problems I have as a professional writer. Maybe some/most/all of them are unique to me -- I don't really know.
1. Consistent access to the same documents across multiple devices, without storing them on any one specific device. I have solved this problem with SpiderOak, and by adjusting my file formats and toolsets across all devices.
2. Touchpad keyboards aren't big enough, or accurate enough for me. It is very difficult to write at the speed of thought on a touchscreen device. I can type much faster on a tactile keyboard, and I can always type faster than I can handwrite, even in shorthand.
3. Font hell. When you go to publish something from a word processor or PDF generator, you must have a license for all of the fonts you use. If you want to use open source fonts, that's fine -- maybe even preferable -- but then you have to use a clever font replacement scheme (which doesn't work for me), or embed the fonts in the document. Embedding fonts takes up a huge amount of space, and there is always one you forget (the page numbers in the footer, the title, even places that don't seem to have any text).
4. Character set encoding hell. Special characters don't translate well across multiple applications. Especially if you are writing in Word and pasting into blog software.
As a writer, I want to write. I don't want to learn a new interface. I do not want to use a multi-touch screen because the fastest form of written communication I've ever experienced is already available to me. Not every old paradigm is bad; not every old design is begging for improvement.
I want to have very little hassle when it comes to editing, publishing, and backup/version control. Can you solve that problem for me? Like, make LyX or LibreOffice save to easily accessible yet secure private cloud storage with rollback capabilities, output directly to CreateSpace, Lulu, and other publishing services without having to embed fonts or screw with formatting and templating?