Forum Posts Feed
Surfulater PrevGen on bits, again
< Next Topic | Back to topic list | Previous Topic >
Posted by 22111
Dec 1, 2013 at 04:37 PM
Btw, and as the “eager thieves”, as I call them, will already have identified, the site mentioned above is a real gold mine, whilst completely OT to OS:
http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/your-looks-and-online-dating/
556 Responses to “Your Looks and Your Inbox”
« Older Comments
April 23, 2011 at 8:26 pm
daveo says:
Well we already knew women were completely nuts. Where’s the news here?
Posted by Franz Grieser
Dec 1, 2013 at 04:40 PM
22111 wrote:
>As in the Proust bomb, a year ago, I’m stating crucial points here
>nobody’s interested in,
“Proust bomb” - you just hit the bull’s eye.
It’s not that nobody here is not interested in what you write. But most of us have a daytime job (and a nighttime job). OK, let me speak on my behalf only: I don’t have the time and nerves to read all the stuff you dump into the forum. I don’t read it, sometimes I skim over the pages and pages you throw at us. And sometimes something catches my interest.
If - if you are really interested in discussions, do not expect others to take half an hour or more just to read what comes out of your keyboard. Make it short.
Or - just occurred to me: Stop writing comments and rants and comments and insults ... Learn to program software instead. And develop the software you wish to use.
Posted by 22111
Dec 1, 2013 at 06:40 PM
“Learn to program software instead. And develop the software you wish to use.”
This is not the only sentence in your post I’d fully subscribe to.
In fact, I often muse about such 800-page manuals (as the one about JavaScript scripting for Acrobat), and others, more “accessible”, but in which most details are left out.
I perfectly understand what you’re saying, and I perfectly understand that you don’t say it as an “enemy”, all to to contrary, and I’m thankful for that. It’s just that I never found the integration of “saying it all” AND “be concise”, and I fear I’ll not find it in my lifetime, and so I risk to continue to hurt the patience of others because I have to make “choices”, i.e. the choice between “approximate completeness” and being possibly welcomed for “being on spot”.
Some weeks ago, in “Die Zeit” (online), I advised publishing houses (of the “creative” kind) to try to find 200-page novels (as abound in France, and are avidly bought and read), instead of publishing too many 600-, 800-, 1200-page novels where in these days, only SOME get bought (“winner-takes-it-all” phenomenon there), whilst most of those eventually will get shreddered. (Whilst in the Seventies, enough housewifes with maids assured the living of many writers of those.)
Now, in fiction, the solution I would adopt for this problem (if I wrote fiction), is to slice up your “novel material” into 3 or 4 thinner, much more accessible separate novels, and to “titillate” a little bit, both Thomas Mann’s “Tonio Kröger” and “Tod in Venedig” (“Death in Venice”, most readers will perfectly have understood even without this translation) are perfectly imaginable as parts of “Buddenbrooks”, making this rather thick boock even thicker. (see below)
You’ve written about 40 or 50 books of your own, Franz, so you must know something about it: How to leave out so many details and hence preserve your message (necessarily not backed-up any-more to that degree then)?
My recurrent question has been: Why do people see length, in itself (!), as an aggression to them?
Well, if I’m entirely honest about it, I see my my writings in another form, too: As said here, one web page, one thought, NO scrolling! So here, I’m in the “developing stage”, and at the end of the day, I should perhaps face the possible truth that nobody wants to serve as a “guinea pig”; in other words, the “form” might too much indicate the true, “pensive” nature of what I’m advancing, so readers might feel abused.
And yes, the sheer length of all of it is a problem, too (all the more so since using too many CAPITALS is rude, and there’s no bolding in order to facilitate skimming. But again, Franz, I’m thankful for what you say, even though not really grasping yet how to better spare all of yours’ time.
In the end, I’ve got more insight than some people here, here and there, had been willing to acknowledge, and my own sw development has been more than 15 years now, which is a very long time, and without other, alternative outliners / IMS taking the conceptual place mine never took, and so my level of frustration is rather high.
And yes, that might be the second cause why threads/postings I deem constructive, often just encounter hate: does my (obviously justified!) frustration (acknowledged!) and my envy (“creating good products doesn’t pay, look at that crap and its returns!” - btw, I suppose CT is rather select, too…?!) - acknowledged! - literally overshadow what I’ve got to say to such a degree that they literally invalidate it for most readers?
Ok, for the experts, this was another post dedicated to Wundt. ;-)
P.S.: Thank you again, Franz. Any more hint (perhaps on the practical side? ;-) ) would be warmly welcome.
Posted by Franz Grieser
Dec 2, 2013 at 12:20 PM
Hi 22111.
Re: you asking for a practical hint.
If I were you:
I’d ask myself: “What are my motivations for posting in the forum?” I’d try to be as honest to myself as possible.
I’d ask myself: “What are the other guys and ladies in the forum for?” I guess that most are here for one or more of these reasons: Sharing experience, getting hints from others, being among like-minded people, finding new software (for writing, for structuring thoughts, for getting organized, ...), procrastination. These are the reasons why I - Franz - keep coming back here.
I’d ask myself: “What do these people want to know?” (not NEED to know - almost nobody likes to be evangelized). And: “How can I contribute?”
I’d ask myself: “What’s the best place for what I want to contribute? The Outlinersoftware forum or the forum of the software developer?” (comment: I have the impression that part of what you write HERE, belongs to different fora - and: yes, I know that some developers are not very responsive to customers inquiries and suggestions).
I’d stop insulting people and trying to show how much better I am than others. (Believe me: “Who is better?” is no category most people here are bother about, the only one who seems to be interested is you).
And I’d stop reading Proust. I’d read Hemingway before posting in this forum ;-)
Thanks for asking. All the best, Franz
btw: I only wrote 24 books that were published under my name :-)
Posted by 22111
Dec 2, 2013 at 03:33 PM
Thank you so much, Franz, all of what you say is right on spot, and very funny, too, especially for the Proust part.
When I get kind advice from somebody who’s perfectly helpful, and whose points are true, I better listen.
Please permit a word in this part of what you say:
“I have the impression that part of what you write HERE, belongs to different fora”. (It would have been foris? Dative? But in latin, accusative? (It’s been so long…) You could be very right here, too, and I think your are! Anyway, my “fori” is rubbish.)
Here again, you are right, but first, I never found such a thing, re outlining, and second (which is related to point 1), I suppose that “our” developers just read this forum, to get new ideas, but that might apply to PP Landry and E Mauro only, after all.
This being said, my technical developments must be something of a nuisance to anybody not being up to lap new pseudocode or something nearing that, and if I ever dare to publish such again, I’ll put, at the very least, some “executive summary” before it, in order to facilitate skimming / scrolling / skipping.
Thank you so much again, Franz, I immensely appreciate your kind and true advice. (Nobody wants to write for other people’s waste baskets, even less creating haters for not “serving them well” - it’s all about respect or lack of it: lesson learned!