Voidtools Everything
Started by 22111
on 4/7/2022
22111
4/7/2022 9:40 am
Spin-off of https://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/9527/0/Replacing-Everything-with-Logseq
FIRST, my post over there which should be deleted over there:
Posted by 22111
Apr 2, 2022 at 09:58 AM
WHAT?
I thought when discovering this thread title in the list: Voidtools Everything can be replaced by anything? Remind you that it comes with additional command line, etc. tools.
OK then, I had been misled by the (correct) capitalization in the title, and this having become a 99-p.c.-Apple forum, nobody here gives a heck (anymore) about possible confusion with the best free Windows(-only) software of all time (FreeCommander comes next, for its “Favorites” management which is better than all the same in any paid (Windows) file manager, and its bulk rename ditto).
So much then for the most terrible software naming of all time, and yes, exceptional non-capitalization would have helped here, all the more so since if you want to replace really “everything”, and then come up with some existant, specific tool, you could not be serious, right, so your “Everything” HAD to be the specific search tool, nay?
And, btw, that current “recipies” question: Why not use Everything (hehe) with file title tags, and then EV search presets (with constants for the folder your “recipies” (or whatever) are in, or other sub-grouping tags)?
EV’s ultimate beauty lies in the fact that from now on, you can file your files as you like, e.g. in functional groups, spread over the drives as you “really” (i.e. most often) need them in your work (or hobby), not by some other ontological criteria which might appear more “logical” at first sight, but which don’t reflect how you really work (or “work”) with them.
While you could very heavily with links (of different sorts) when all the (relevant) data is on the same drive, smart EV use will be so much more easy and fast, and as soon as the (relevant) data is spread over several, multiple drives, EV will save your day (and your budget).
Example: Hundreds or thousands of 5-gb iso files, let’s say backups of your DVDs (in countries where you own but you’ve bought, which is not the case e.g. in the European Union): Would you really want to group them by directors, or by countries (then by directors), or then rather by genre and even sub-genre, specific (main) characteristics (the most important for you, considering, in this example, the unwieldiness of doing copies, except perhaps in the most exceptional cases), reflecting your “use” of this data wealth?
And don’t speak of hard drive arrays, since they make all the drives run at the same time, which means unnecessary wear at the same time, in most use cases.
These, more special, “spread data” examples are made possible by EV’s capability to also present data of currently non-connected drives, but even for connected data, EV is invaluable, and whilst it cannot replace everything (hehe), it renders almost useless many of specific tools which then force their specific ways upon you, and which, even if, in most cases, they will ultimately let you export / transfer your raw data, will then, in many cases, withhold your painstakingly concocted, organizational “meta” data of various kinds.
Just saying.
FIRST, my post over there which should be deleted over there:
Posted by 22111
Apr 2, 2022 at 09:58 AM
WHAT?
I thought when discovering this thread title in the list: Voidtools Everything can be replaced by anything? Remind you that it comes with additional command line, etc. tools.
OK then, I had been misled by the (correct) capitalization in the title, and this having become a 99-p.c.-Apple forum, nobody here gives a heck (anymore) about possible confusion with the best free Windows(-only) software of all time (FreeCommander comes next, for its “Favorites” management which is better than all the same in any paid (Windows) file manager, and its bulk rename ditto).
So much then for the most terrible software naming of all time, and yes, exceptional non-capitalization would have helped here, all the more so since if you want to replace really “everything”, and then come up with some existant, specific tool, you could not be serious, right, so your “Everything” HAD to be the specific search tool, nay?
And, btw, that current “recipies” question: Why not use Everything (hehe) with file title tags, and then EV search presets (with constants for the folder your “recipies” (or whatever) are in, or other sub-grouping tags)?
EV’s ultimate beauty lies in the fact that from now on, you can file your files as you like, e.g. in functional groups, spread over the drives as you “really” (i.e. most often) need them in your work (or hobby), not by some other ontological criteria which might appear more “logical” at first sight, but which don’t reflect how you really work (or “work”) with them.
While you could very heavily with links (of different sorts) when all the (relevant) data is on the same drive, smart EV use will be so much more easy and fast, and as soon as the (relevant) data is spread over several, multiple drives, EV will save your day (and your budget).
Example: Hundreds or thousands of 5-gb iso files, let’s say backups of your DVDs (in countries where you own but you’ve bought, which is not the case e.g. in the European Union): Would you really want to group them by directors, or by countries (then by directors), or then rather by genre and even sub-genre, specific (main) characteristics (the most important for you, considering, in this example, the unwieldiness of doing copies, except perhaps in the most exceptional cases), reflecting your “use” of this data wealth?
And don’t speak of hard drive arrays, since they make all the drives run at the same time, which means unnecessary wear at the same time, in most use cases.
These, more special, “spread data” examples are made possible by EV’s capability to also present data of currently non-connected drives, but even for connected data, EV is invaluable, and whilst it cannot replace everything (hehe), it renders almost useless many of specific tools which then force their specific ways upon you, and which, even if, in most cases, they will ultimately let you export / transfer your raw data, will then, in many cases, withhold your painstakingly concocted, organizational “meta” data of various kinds.
Just saying.
22111
4/7/2022 12:45 pm
Now some other things.
Re .iso files (as an example of systematically really big files where "linking" (of any sort) would be more or less the only way of creating "multiples"): Netflix (as an alleged alternative in that example case, ditto for some other subscription services) doesn't even have a trial (anymore), so I can't speak of it but by hearsay, so:
It seems their business model is a combination of "Now you see me, now you don't" (Cliff Richard, 1982) and "But don't make a local copy nonetheless", and other big problems, for non-native speakers and for people not residing within the right (sic!) country - so at the end of the day, this applies to everybody -, are:
- according to "your" country, you just get a subset of the lot (for legal reasons, I know) (And they prevent VPN access and check your payment's "nationality".)
- from what you'll get there then, you only get your "local" language (?) and/or not the sub-titles you might want/need, e.g. just the Romanian ones, in Romania, instead of the "original language" (e.g. Italian) ones, or systematically English where available though for the "original copy". (I may be mistaken here.)
- if you (illegally) overcome (some of) the above "limitations", you'll find yourself with copies either with one specific subtitle set, or without, a problem the .iso format will not also present.
When I said almost all here use Apple hardware, I meant, to then accessing their web whatever, most of the time (Mac plus iWhatever), but some will juggle with several PCs, and they could be interested in EV's ability to access (and index, i.e. display the contents of even "offline" then) network drives, and not only NTFS ones.
As "network manager" is a profession on its own, you'll probably will have guessed there are lots of problem then, but if you can overcome them, you will be able to have, at any given time, and with any given Windows device, if not access to the data itself, but at least to the knowledge with data is in your possession, and where, and this knowledge will include any meta information contained within the folder, or within the file name part of the objects' respective paths; this independently of the connection of the drives, USB, NAS / network or even the c: drives in some / any pc; even indexing access to web storage will be possible (by FTP), and thus access to the above-mentioned meta info, without web access being necessary at that time.
The most important info to get into EV-and-networks being, I cite the author from his forum:
"NTFS indexing is only for local NTFS disks. That means: the harddsiks inside your PC/laptop as well as those NTFS disks that are (USB) connected to your PC/laptop.
That is because Everything reads a hidden part of the NTFS disk to build it's index.
Building the index this way is *very* fast.
This hidden part is not accessible over the network.
In that case you should use folder indexing.
Non-NTFS disks do not have this 'hidden part' and should also use folder indexing."
Some links:
https://smallbusiness.chron.com/turbotax-taxes-13771756.html =
"How to Link Two Computers to One External Hard Drive"
https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/map-a-network-drive-in-windows-29ce55d1-34e3-a7e2-4801-131475f9557d
https://www.lifewire.com/what-is-a-mapped-drive-2625932
And then from voidtools:
https://www.voidtools.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9796 = "Indexing"
https://www.voidtools.com/support/everything/folder_indexing/
http://www.voidtools.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1724 =
"Folder Indexing Help"
https://www.voidtools.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1920 =
"Using Everything for Mapped Network drives (shared folders)" (this being just partly obsolete)
https://www.voidtools.com/en-au/faq/
https://www.voidtools.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6873 =
"Indexing and searching network drive"
https://www.voidtools.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8684 =
"Searching network drives"
https://www.voidtools.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=7440 =
"Can see but not open"
And you might even interested in this additional EV tool "Index This":
https://www.voidtools.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=6808
After having used mobile PCs for many years, even when they cost as much a tiny car, I don't need them anymore, and I don't have a real network either (I worked in networks but which were administered by the above professionals; now I have one stationary ("desktop") pc, connected to the web, and another which is not, each with its own kb and mouse, necessary transfers by USB stick; some put them together in a network, in order to make room for more paperwork... and for more of their electronic data to get at risk: that's so cute! and oh yes, physical switches are a nightmare indeed), so I don't have no need for the above set-up, but I think trying out the above might be really helpful for non Apple users indeed in their active years.
Another proof, btw and if really another one was needed, that the Windows system is not systematically inferior to the iWorld, it's just its marketing which might be qualified as abysmal.
And there is a quite laughable irony in the fact that with all the "home office" "needs" and requirements, whilst the above set-up would have been tremendously beneficial to almost anyone (and then the necessary staff is there in order to make it work), EV (just as AutoHotkey) is systematically held off-limits, for so-called "security reasons". Well...
I hope iPeople have/get something similar then, to both. It comes to my surprise, though, that they so rarely (and that's an euphemism for "never (?)") speak or write about spicing up their iEnvironment. (Might be because of them considering the necessary set-up efforts "porn"? (See over there.))
Re .iso files (as an example of systematically really big files where "linking" (of any sort) would be more or less the only way of creating "multiples"): Netflix (as an alleged alternative in that example case, ditto for some other subscription services) doesn't even have a trial (anymore), so I can't speak of it but by hearsay, so:
It seems their business model is a combination of "Now you see me, now you don't" (Cliff Richard, 1982) and "But don't make a local copy nonetheless", and other big problems, for non-native speakers and for people not residing within the right (sic!) country - so at the end of the day, this applies to everybody -, are:
- according to "your" country, you just get a subset of the lot (for legal reasons, I know) (And they prevent VPN access and check your payment's "nationality".)
- from what you'll get there then, you only get your "local" language (?) and/or not the sub-titles you might want/need, e.g. just the Romanian ones, in Romania, instead of the "original language" (e.g. Italian) ones, or systematically English where available though for the "original copy". (I may be mistaken here.)
- if you (illegally) overcome (some of) the above "limitations", you'll find yourself with copies either with one specific subtitle set, or without, a problem the .iso format will not also present.
When I said almost all here use Apple hardware, I meant, to then accessing their web whatever, most of the time (Mac plus iWhatever), but some will juggle with several PCs, and they could be interested in EV's ability to access (and index, i.e. display the contents of even "offline" then) network drives, and not only NTFS ones.
As "network manager" is a profession on its own, you'll probably will have guessed there are lots of problem then, but if you can overcome them, you will be able to have, at any given time, and with any given Windows device, if not access to the data itself, but at least to the knowledge with data is in your possession, and where, and this knowledge will include any meta information contained within the folder, or within the file name part of the objects' respective paths; this independently of the connection of the drives, USB, NAS / network or even the c: drives in some / any pc; even indexing access to web storage will be possible (by FTP), and thus access to the above-mentioned meta info, without web access being necessary at that time.
The most important info to get into EV-and-networks being, I cite the author from his forum:
"NTFS indexing is only for local NTFS disks. That means: the harddsiks inside your PC/laptop as well as those NTFS disks that are (USB) connected to your PC/laptop.
That is because Everything reads a hidden part of the NTFS disk to build it's index.
Building the index this way is *very* fast.
This hidden part is not accessible over the network.
In that case you should use folder indexing.
Non-NTFS disks do not have this 'hidden part' and should also use folder indexing."
Some links:
https://smallbusiness.chron.com/turbotax-taxes-13771756.html =
"How to Link Two Computers to One External Hard Drive"
https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/map-a-network-drive-in-windows-29ce55d1-34e3-a7e2-4801-131475f9557d
https://www.lifewire.com/what-is-a-mapped-drive-2625932
And then from voidtools:
https://www.voidtools.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9796 = "Indexing"
https://www.voidtools.com/support/everything/folder_indexing/
http://www.voidtools.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1724 =
"Folder Indexing Help"
https://www.voidtools.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1920 =
"Using Everything for Mapped Network drives (shared folders)" (this being just partly obsolete)
https://www.voidtools.com/en-au/faq/
https://www.voidtools.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6873 =
"Indexing and searching network drive"
https://www.voidtools.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8684 =
"Searching network drives"
https://www.voidtools.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=7440 =
"Can see but not open"
And you might even interested in this additional EV tool "Index This":
https://www.voidtools.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=6808
After having used mobile PCs for many years, even when they cost as much a tiny car, I don't need them anymore, and I don't have a real network either (I worked in networks but which were administered by the above professionals; now I have one stationary ("desktop") pc, connected to the web, and another which is not, each with its own kb and mouse, necessary transfers by USB stick; some put them together in a network, in order to make room for more paperwork... and for more of their electronic data to get at risk: that's so cute! and oh yes, physical switches are a nightmare indeed), so I don't have no need for the above set-up, but I think trying out the above might be really helpful for non Apple users indeed in their active years.
Another proof, btw and if really another one was needed, that the Windows system is not systematically inferior to the iWorld, it's just its marketing which might be qualified as abysmal.
And there is a quite laughable irony in the fact that with all the "home office" "needs" and requirements, whilst the above set-up would have been tremendously beneficial to almost anyone (and then the necessary staff is there in order to make it work), EV (just as AutoHotkey) is systematically held off-limits, for so-called "security reasons". Well...
I hope iPeople have/get something similar then, to both. It comes to my surprise, though, that they so rarely (and that's an euphemism for "never (?)") speak or write about spicing up their iEnvironment. (Might be because of them considering the necessary set-up efforts "porn"? (See over there.))
22111
4/7/2022 1:19 pm
I see there is a 1972 movie "Now You See Him, Now You Don't" https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069031/ - which reminds me that I had searched for movie lists on the Netflix site, i.e. ordered, comprehensive lists of movies currently available in a given country / legislation, in order to have a base for any decision if it MIGHT be worthwhile or not. Have not found any, and it seems that even when you "buy" into, i.e. rent the access, all you'll get is lists of "suggestions", i.e. more or less the same chaos you know from YouTube.
I acknowledge this is irrelevant to my EV topic, but then, it's just another, relevant, detail, to my reminder, welcome to some, of web storage problems vs. local storage in general, all the more so since the non-acknowledgement of that problem (and of rent vs. buy, the interwoven if secondary problem) seems to be the main cause which prevents developers from further developing local storage software (and software to buy), especially with "outliners" and everything around that term, this forum (in which something like "WorkFlowy" is the star) being the foremost witness to that.
I acknowledge this is irrelevant to my EV topic, but then, it's just another, relevant, detail, to my reminder, welcome to some, of web storage problems vs. local storage in general, all the more so since the non-acknowledgement of that problem (and of rent vs. buy, the interwoven if secondary problem) seems to be the main cause which prevents developers from further developing local storage software (and software to buy), especially with "outliners" and everything around that term, this forum (in which something like "WorkFlowy" is the star) being the foremost witness to that.
22111
4/7/2022 4:51 pm
Scrivener or Writer's One-Stop Shop
Above, I incriminate, among other things, (especially) iPeople's inclination to search for "better", but then to content themselves with what their choice-of-the-moment deigns to give them, instead of giving a little thinking to how they could do something "about" that choice, within that choice.
This thought inescapably brings me to consider Scrivener again, since there are some factors, quite surprising taken in combination, around that software.
- Windows version is really bad but sold at the same price as the Mac version; at the beginning, the former was understandable since a second (alleged team of?) developer(s) coded that version, after the tremendous success of the Mac version; now, many years later, the former, together with the latter, has to be considered a scam
- Search amazon.com for "Scrivener", and you'll see it's tremendously successful software (Mac-wise at least), there being available many different books, from different authors, around it, similar to books about MS Office software (Some of those are electronic books only, but the number of paper books is quite astonishing indeed.)
- This impression gets fortified by web searches: Fora and other sites abound where Scrivener is discussed at length and in every imaginable detail, be them sites with a "software for writers" subject or just "writing" sites in general
- In spectacularly big contrast to the above, there do not seem many add-ins, add-ons or similar tools, macros or such available which would / could fill the multiple (!) voids (cf. "Voidtools") in (even Mac's, not even speaking of Windows' here) Scrivener's functionality and/or its user-interface (lack of) "smoothness"
- And that in the presence of the (Mac version's unique?) developer's almost systematic refusal to fill these voids himself (that's at least what I, subjectively, got from reading many times in various fora, incl. the official one)
- Thus, (Mac's) Scrivener's current situation, from its developer's motivational point of view, seems (to me) comparable to (Window's) Ultra Recall's: bugs are exterminated, and that's it, more or less, notwithstanding persevering, extreme "blanks" in functionality (and multiple user demands to fill them)
- The difference between the two programs, from my specific point of view detailed here, being that Scrivener has almost got a monopoly (!) to the writer's market
(and seemingly more than 90 p.c. of (paid or would-be) writers "being on Mac" anyway, cf. the almost total lack of Windows writers' software from other entities which do (after-all, not-so-much) "parallel" Mac-and-Windows versions (e.g. Write Bros., and others)),
with almost anybody "writing" (i.e. fiction of any kind) out there having bought (or then even updated) Scrivener,
whilst UR is more or less "dying" software in the sense of there (allegedly, perhaps I'm wrong: I judge from their forum activity (with rarely any new member, among other indicators) not being many new users, so that, contrary to (always Mac's, as said) Scrivener, the (allegedly sole again) developer's lack of motivation is understandable
- Thus, with Scrivener, we have got an (for seemingly "specialized" software) almost incredible "eco system", BUT which confines itself to book sales and endless rhabarber-rhabarber of the (allegedly) millions of (more or less keeping-at) users in fora all over the place, without any relevant software / tools contributions, and this, financially- and acceptance-wise, extremely successful software, thus remaining far from "perfect" or "optimized"... or even "intuitive" (! cf. the forum posts), whatever
- Which brings me to the conclusion that there is no "market" for such "helper tools", since "writers" (most of them of the would-be kind, naturally) and/or iPeople, in general (my latter allegation seemingly confirmed by what I've observed and mentioned in my previous posts here), REFUSE to "fiddle around" with "technics"... or should I rather say, with "technicalities"?
- And that seems to be the inherent, false "beauty" of Scrivener: Weren't it a (quite bad, and would-be) Writer's One-Stop Shop, its financial success would probably be just one tenth of what it seemingly is, since those alleged millions, instead of adopting it, would very probably refrain from it, getting the (as explained and as it is, non-existant) info that it was "not complete", and for completeness, it would need "upgrading" of some sorts (i.e. provided by third-parties)
- Which brings us to Apple, Mac, iWhatever in general where the "designer" (you couldn't call them "manufacturer", could you?) does apply every means available to them for preventing such "upgrading" of any sorts... with the result that their products sell like hotcakes
- And that brings me to a very deep irony here, especially, but not exclusively, with regards to the aforementioned would-be writers (whilst paid ones, I think, will need other things on top; can't say definitely, since, as said, I am on Windows, and would never touch this "scriveners"' thing on either platform):
Obviously, they want a "perfect, rounded-up gestalt", in order to feel "complete", while "producing" something which inherently is, and will always be - and even beyond any possible publication date - incomplete: Those people fear the insecurity of the way to the - any - "product", and so, they use Apple products, those allegedly self-contained, in fact severely limiting ones, as their constant downer, whilst e.g. Hemingway (the writer, not the "Manhattan" co-star) used alcohol in order to keep overwhelming insecurity at bay - and obviously, the allegedly "complete", "rounded-up" Scrivener is the perfect, even "ideal" software tool on their allegedly "complete", "rounded-up" "Macbook Pro", "iPad" or whatever they can afford buying...
Thus: The Brits have The Queen's suppliers from which they ideally buy; insecure computer users have got their "ideal machine", and with Scrivener, with its "ideal front-end" on top, whatever their respective limitations (hardware, software, user) may be: We're speaking of the IDEAL OBJECT here, and that can't be criticized anymore, since it supplies Today's Narcissist Society's core: the Eternal Narc who just NEEDS - no discussion possible, ask'em! - the Ideal Object to bring'em over the day... but they constantly feel it's not as ideal as that after all... and that's why there's
CRIMPING
for example, or then, replacing your "write projects", within that "ideal machine", one with the others - these, at the end of the day, consumptional strolls (replacing "production") will come though, for your liver, with some comparative benefits, whilst the term "workstation" is at the opposite end of this notional axis, and could give you the chance to also consider some personal intervention into your further (wo)man/whoever-machine interactional activities, instead of assuming that any productional beauty lies in the original (and then turning out non-lasting anyway) choice.
Some professional, and really productive, authors (with readable handwriting or minimum two secretaries) always write by hand instead, and, as far as I know, with pencils and such, not with expensive, de luxe fountain pens; I suppose they get their inspiration from the unform of their scribbling, instead of satisfying themselves with the prettiness of form on screen - I'd be interested in hearing from any non-pulp novelist systematically using Scrivener, and I'd bet there's none. (For that insane "littérature de gare", David Hewson and his software blog come to mind, hahaha!)
Anyway, some interaction with the technicalities of your software could imitate, to some degree, I think, the immediate, traditional writing experience: the one that in some hands will produce classics, and bear in mind, originally "classic" had been a high-brow term, not an euphemism yet for old, obsolete, discounted (Apple) hardware; and then, the latter appears just short-term suitable for covert narcs anyway, will even physically make'em deeply suffer before long.
For the layperson: It's about implication, engagement, instead of The Golden Child (cf. Ritchie 1986), and even On Golden Pond (Rydell 1981) makes you understand something about tried fetish incantation.
Yes, Apple's Evil, and no wonder they sell to unsophisticated (sic!) brats even in gold (and in rosy, too), and with the above, I now consider the "Why's Apple THAT successful?", the CRIMPING, as well as all of serial divorce, problems being resolved... and besides, nothing's new here, cf., among others, Erich Fromm 1976, and no, that's not a movie for once.
And in my post's title, "Stop"'s the keyword, then. Now you give names, to prove me wrong... And oh yes, all the above is about the "original", aberrant, third party's idea of "Replacing Everything with ...": Just developing a little bit, to prove my point... since there is no magic potion, and no magic black-box either that most of you seem to dream of though when they try to identify the notion of creating text, now that our original category "outline" has emerged as being totally unsatisfactory for all of us to get to the task, as 99 p.c. of current and recent posts here amply prove.
Above, I incriminate, among other things, (especially) iPeople's inclination to search for "better", but then to content themselves with what their choice-of-the-moment deigns to give them, instead of giving a little thinking to how they could do something "about" that choice, within that choice.
This thought inescapably brings me to consider Scrivener again, since there are some factors, quite surprising taken in combination, around that software.
- Windows version is really bad but sold at the same price as the Mac version; at the beginning, the former was understandable since a second (alleged team of?) developer(s) coded that version, after the tremendous success of the Mac version; now, many years later, the former, together with the latter, has to be considered a scam
- Search amazon.com for "Scrivener", and you'll see it's tremendously successful software (Mac-wise at least), there being available many different books, from different authors, around it, similar to books about MS Office software (Some of those are electronic books only, but the number of paper books is quite astonishing indeed.)
- This impression gets fortified by web searches: Fora and other sites abound where Scrivener is discussed at length and in every imaginable detail, be them sites with a "software for writers" subject or just "writing" sites in general
- In spectacularly big contrast to the above, there do not seem many add-ins, add-ons or similar tools, macros or such available which would / could fill the multiple (!) voids (cf. "Voidtools") in (even Mac's, not even speaking of Windows' here) Scrivener's functionality and/or its user-interface (lack of) "smoothness"
- And that in the presence of the (Mac version's unique?) developer's almost systematic refusal to fill these voids himself (that's at least what I, subjectively, got from reading many times in various fora, incl. the official one)
- Thus, (Mac's) Scrivener's current situation, from its developer's motivational point of view, seems (to me) comparable to (Window's) Ultra Recall's: bugs are exterminated, and that's it, more or less, notwithstanding persevering, extreme "blanks" in functionality (and multiple user demands to fill them)
- The difference between the two programs, from my specific point of view detailed here, being that Scrivener has almost got a monopoly (!) to the writer's market
(and seemingly more than 90 p.c. of (paid or would-be) writers "being on Mac" anyway, cf. the almost total lack of Windows writers' software from other entities which do (after-all, not-so-much) "parallel" Mac-and-Windows versions (e.g. Write Bros., and others)),
with almost anybody "writing" (i.e. fiction of any kind) out there having bought (or then even updated) Scrivener,
whilst UR is more or less "dying" software in the sense of there (allegedly, perhaps I'm wrong: I judge from their forum activity (with rarely any new member, among other indicators) not being many new users, so that, contrary to (always Mac's, as said) Scrivener, the (allegedly sole again) developer's lack of motivation is understandable
- Thus, with Scrivener, we have got an (for seemingly "specialized" software) almost incredible "eco system", BUT which confines itself to book sales and endless rhabarber-rhabarber of the (allegedly) millions of (more or less keeping-at) users in fora all over the place, without any relevant software / tools contributions, and this, financially- and acceptance-wise, extremely successful software, thus remaining far from "perfect" or "optimized"... or even "intuitive" (! cf. the forum posts), whatever
- Which brings me to the conclusion that there is no "market" for such "helper tools", since "writers" (most of them of the would-be kind, naturally) and/or iPeople, in general (my latter allegation seemingly confirmed by what I've observed and mentioned in my previous posts here), REFUSE to "fiddle around" with "technics"... or should I rather say, with "technicalities"?
- And that seems to be the inherent, false "beauty" of Scrivener: Weren't it a (quite bad, and would-be) Writer's One-Stop Shop, its financial success would probably be just one tenth of what it seemingly is, since those alleged millions, instead of adopting it, would very probably refrain from it, getting the (as explained and as it is, non-existant) info that it was "not complete", and for completeness, it would need "upgrading" of some sorts (i.e. provided by third-parties)
- Which brings us to Apple, Mac, iWhatever in general where the "designer" (you couldn't call them "manufacturer", could you?) does apply every means available to them for preventing such "upgrading" of any sorts... with the result that their products sell like hotcakes
- And that brings me to a very deep irony here, especially, but not exclusively, with regards to the aforementioned would-be writers (whilst paid ones, I think, will need other things on top; can't say definitely, since, as said, I am on Windows, and would never touch this "scriveners"' thing on either platform):
Obviously, they want a "perfect, rounded-up gestalt", in order to feel "complete", while "producing" something which inherently is, and will always be - and even beyond any possible publication date - incomplete: Those people fear the insecurity of the way to the - any - "product", and so, they use Apple products, those allegedly self-contained, in fact severely limiting ones, as their constant downer, whilst e.g. Hemingway (the writer, not the "Manhattan" co-star) used alcohol in order to keep overwhelming insecurity at bay - and obviously, the allegedly "complete", "rounded-up" Scrivener is the perfect, even "ideal" software tool on their allegedly "complete", "rounded-up" "Macbook Pro", "iPad" or whatever they can afford buying...
Thus: The Brits have The Queen's suppliers from which they ideally buy; insecure computer users have got their "ideal machine", and with Scrivener, with its "ideal front-end" on top, whatever their respective limitations (hardware, software, user) may be: We're speaking of the IDEAL OBJECT here, and that can't be criticized anymore, since it supplies Today's Narcissist Society's core: the Eternal Narc who just NEEDS - no discussion possible, ask'em! - the Ideal Object to bring'em over the day... but they constantly feel it's not as ideal as that after all... and that's why there's
CRIMPING
for example, or then, replacing your "write projects", within that "ideal machine", one with the others - these, at the end of the day, consumptional strolls (replacing "production") will come though, for your liver, with some comparative benefits, whilst the term "workstation" is at the opposite end of this notional axis, and could give you the chance to also consider some personal intervention into your further (wo)man/whoever-machine interactional activities, instead of assuming that any productional beauty lies in the original (and then turning out non-lasting anyway) choice.
Some professional, and really productive, authors (with readable handwriting or minimum two secretaries) always write by hand instead, and, as far as I know, with pencils and such, not with expensive, de luxe fountain pens; I suppose they get their inspiration from the unform of their scribbling, instead of satisfying themselves with the prettiness of form on screen - I'd be interested in hearing from any non-pulp novelist systematically using Scrivener, and I'd bet there's none. (For that insane "littérature de gare", David Hewson and his software blog come to mind, hahaha!)
Anyway, some interaction with the technicalities of your software could imitate, to some degree, I think, the immediate, traditional writing experience: the one that in some hands will produce classics, and bear in mind, originally "classic" had been a high-brow term, not an euphemism yet for old, obsolete, discounted (Apple) hardware; and then, the latter appears just short-term suitable for covert narcs anyway, will even physically make'em deeply suffer before long.
For the layperson: It's about implication, engagement, instead of The Golden Child (cf. Ritchie 1986), and even On Golden Pond (Rydell 1981) makes you understand something about tried fetish incantation.
Yes, Apple's Evil, and no wonder they sell to unsophisticated (sic!) brats even in gold (and in rosy, too), and with the above, I now consider the "Why's Apple THAT successful?", the CRIMPING, as well as all of serial divorce, problems being resolved... and besides, nothing's new here, cf., among others, Erich Fromm 1976, and no, that's not a movie for once.
And in my post's title, "Stop"'s the keyword, then. Now you give names, to prove me wrong... And oh yes, all the above is about the "original", aberrant, third party's idea of "Replacing Everything with ...": Just developing a little bit, to prove my point... since there is no magic potion, and no magic black-box either that most of you seem to dream of though when they try to identify the notion of creating text, now that our original category "outline" has emerged as being totally unsatisfactory for all of us to get to the task, as 99 p.c. of current and recent posts here amply prove.
MadaboutDana
4/8/2022 9:36 am
Some interesting thoughts in the midst of that cloud of wide-ranging reflections.
I think you answer your own question, in fact. Scrivener is a tool developed for a specific purpose: writing a book (or long-form text).
This it does / helps users to do extremely well. The macOS version in particular, but I would disagree that the Windows version is "bad"; it's perhaps not quite as refined as the macOS version.
But Scrivener isn't optimal for other things. I've tried using Scrivener as a general knowledge-management system, and even as a task manager. But it is not optimised for these purposes. If, however, you want to concentrate your energies on producing a book, with all the associated research, scraps of written text, thoughts, ideas etc., then Scrivener works as a mighty platform.
There are other solutions out there, of course: notably Ulysses (and others that are so expensive they tend to be overlooked, like the German app Papyrus Author [https://www.papyrusauthor.com] So there is some competitive pressure, despite the popularity of each of these tools.
None of these solutions necessarily represent total, all-in-one knowledge management/personal management/writing/thought development/ideation apps, however. Nor would their (in my experience, very amiable and responsive) developers pretend that they do.
So I'm not quite sure what you're criticising.
- The failure of these apps to be what they were never intended to be?
- The failure of their developers to respond to the (in my experience, enormously broad) range of requests from users to turn them, effectively, into something they were never intended to be?
- Or the complacency of the developers who are failing to optimise them even further (while still focusing on what the apps were intended to be)?
That software models still don't match the enormous potential now represented by modern hardware is clear. But this clearly has significant implications for human cognitive processing abilities – while an enormous number of incredibly ingenious knowledge-management methods have been developed, none of them are seamless or omnipotent, and no-one has yet succeeded in bringing all these wonderful ideas together to form the Ultimate UI/UX.
In short – if I may adduce a film reference (enjoy!) – we're still a long way from the apparently 100% intuitive interface shown in "Minority Report" or, to a lesser extent, in "Avatar" (an interface which, of course, is still very far from intuitive and relies on significant familiarisation to work at the speeds achieved by good ole' Tom Cruise).
An interesting muse, nevertheless.
I think you answer your own question, in fact. Scrivener is a tool developed for a specific purpose: writing a book (or long-form text).
This it does / helps users to do extremely well. The macOS version in particular, but I would disagree that the Windows version is "bad"; it's perhaps not quite as refined as the macOS version.
But Scrivener isn't optimal for other things. I've tried using Scrivener as a general knowledge-management system, and even as a task manager. But it is not optimised for these purposes. If, however, you want to concentrate your energies on producing a book, with all the associated research, scraps of written text, thoughts, ideas etc., then Scrivener works as a mighty platform.
There are other solutions out there, of course: notably Ulysses (and others that are so expensive they tend to be overlooked, like the German app Papyrus Author [https://www.papyrusauthor.com] So there is some competitive pressure, despite the popularity of each of these tools.
None of these solutions necessarily represent total, all-in-one knowledge management/personal management/writing/thought development/ideation apps, however. Nor would their (in my experience, very amiable and responsive) developers pretend that they do.
So I'm not quite sure what you're criticising.
- The failure of these apps to be what they were never intended to be?
- The failure of their developers to respond to the (in my experience, enormously broad) range of requests from users to turn them, effectively, into something they were never intended to be?
- Or the complacency of the developers who are failing to optimise them even further (while still focusing on what the apps were intended to be)?
That software models still don't match the enormous potential now represented by modern hardware is clear. But this clearly has significant implications for human cognitive processing abilities – while an enormous number of incredibly ingenious knowledge-management methods have been developed, none of them are seamless or omnipotent, and no-one has yet succeeded in bringing all these wonderful ideas together to form the Ultimate UI/UX.
In short – if I may adduce a film reference (enjoy!) – we're still a long way from the apparently 100% intuitive interface shown in "Minority Report" or, to a lesser extent, in "Avatar" (an interface which, of course, is still very far from intuitive and relies on significant familiarisation to work at the speeds achieved by good ole' Tom Cruise).
An interesting muse, nevertheless.
22111
4/8/2022 10:12 pm
To clarify for the casual reader
For many years now,
- you have read all over the web that Apple's narcs' tool: "for me, just the best" (always alleged that Apple was the best), and consequentially,
- in virtually all (not only Hollywood-) movies, the protagonists (heroes), if they were shown with a computer, either sat before a Mac (rarely) or with a Macbook (Pro) on their lap (systematically, and preferably in bed), whilst
- the losers in movies systematically have been shown with PCs or (as cheap as possible) laptops (Acer and the like, preferably on cheap-looking desks / kitchen tables).
Thus, it's a truism that Apple = narc (or "quality", if you prefer).
A - rare - exception to the above rule are Lenovo notebooks, but see here: https://www.embedded.com/lenovo-adds-novelda-uwb-sensor-for-human-presence-detection-in-thinkpad/ - they now aggress you with radar beams; if you think that's ok, well...
When I say that Apple's evil, just look here, 2 days ago: https://www.heise.de/news/App-Store-Apple-fuehrt-automatische-Preiserhoehungen-fuer-Abonnements-ein-6664208.html - their app subscriptions' price increases are now automated (in countries where such tactics are legal) - you'll understand that I rejoice upon any such news about crazy people who obviously permit Apple everything... but on a more somber note, yesterday: https://www.heise.de/hintergrund/Tim-Cooks-raffiniertes-Buendnis-mit-China-Apples-geheimer-Pakt-6657956.html?wt_mc=intern.red.plus.newsticker.7-tage-news.teaser.teaser -
before the paid part, they say, among other things, that with no other country than the one mentioned in the url, Apple is more intimate, and that "critics say that Apple is kneeling before a dictatorship" - well, that's no news indeed.
Then, Scrivener is "sold" - especially by third-parties - as, I said, a one-stop writers' shop, i.e. a self-contained writing-machine for all phases of writing and including documentation and all, and thinking of Scrivener's spectacular success with would-be writers, I now think that Apple's, monstruous, success, cannot be comprehended by narcs' "for me, the very best only", since if that was so, many of those narcs would finally notice that Apple's NOT the best, and they would switch, but as we all know, most of them never do either.
Thus, Apple's products' TOTEM quality must lie in some other factor, I said to myself, and then, when you observe how jealously they try to CLOSE their systems, and even to the point of making it almost impossible to change the battery, glued all around under pretense of space considerations, it occurred to me that all of their really successful products (which excludes their servers and the like) are "perfect objects", not - far from that - by quality, but by gestalt.
If you think further, you will quickly discover that this totem quality has been present in other commercial objects, before Apple's rise, and there, too, it was NOT ONLY about "see, I'm rich, I can afford this" (as critics think Apple's about), but that those objects, too, are required to have MAGICAL value for their owners, be them 6- or 7-digit priced Swiss watches ("time's running out" > "You never own a xx for yourself alone" (or similar, don't remind the exact wording, and showing some top manager / corporation owner, invariably together with his young son; or 5- and 6-digit priced Swiss watches for deep sea diving (!): if your workplace's problems threaten to litterally bury you alive, ascertain yourself you bear the xx on your wrist, take a deep breath and say to yourself, the evening crowns the day - it's NOT over yet, you're not done in, it's "noch nicht aller Tage Abend"), the Meisterstück fountain pen (which promises that your signature, done with it, will not ruin you, but hopefully beneficial to you), and even the Hermès scarf (in the mid- and high 3-digit range) which even some young girls collect, in order to rebut any juvenile anxiety, by identifying with their mums - it's the only garment which they can "share", without giving their respective age, i.e. which does not separate them from each other.
Thus, it's about buying (into) a ROUNDED object, a totem, in order to possess (sic!) rest and peace, the DONE thing, instead of striving to create it, whilst the creator - it's no wonder so many successful (i.e. they must do something right, right?) artists (painters, fashion designers) just wear black, so that literally no object (seemingly "perfect" or not, then even more disturbing their creation) interferes with their sight - whilst the creator then ALLOWS for chaos, allows for crudity, for in-the-making, and gets to the FINISHED product iteratively, by hard work.
In other words, totems, be them hard- or software (or that allegedly perfect merging of both in the iPad), or just men's, women's or thirdsex's "accessories", serve to fool you about "having it already done", in work of any kind, or about "having already become a real person", by possessing that totem,
instead of using some thinking (or "innervision", as Stevie Wonder called that half a century ago) as anxiolytic while necessarily striving... striving to create, to become.
And since totems don't work in the end as expected, we've also got social media. ;-)
(They obviously have got qualified shrinks over at Cupertino. Oh, and even MS have tried something like that, with their "trendy" hardware for some time now, but Windows's too functionally ugly for such a spell for them to work out...)
For many years now,
- you have read all over the web that Apple's narcs' tool: "for me, just the best" (always alleged that Apple was the best), and consequentially,
- in virtually all (not only Hollywood-) movies, the protagonists (heroes), if they were shown with a computer, either sat before a Mac (rarely) or with a Macbook (Pro) on their lap (systematically, and preferably in bed), whilst
- the losers in movies systematically have been shown with PCs or (as cheap as possible) laptops (Acer and the like, preferably on cheap-looking desks / kitchen tables).
Thus, it's a truism that Apple = narc (or "quality", if you prefer).
A - rare - exception to the above rule are Lenovo notebooks, but see here: https://www.embedded.com/lenovo-adds-novelda-uwb-sensor-for-human-presence-detection-in-thinkpad/ - they now aggress you with radar beams; if you think that's ok, well...
When I say that Apple's evil, just look here, 2 days ago: https://www.heise.de/news/App-Store-Apple-fuehrt-automatische-Preiserhoehungen-fuer-Abonnements-ein-6664208.html - their app subscriptions' price increases are now automated (in countries where such tactics are legal) - you'll understand that I rejoice upon any such news about crazy people who obviously permit Apple everything... but on a more somber note, yesterday: https://www.heise.de/hintergrund/Tim-Cooks-raffiniertes-Buendnis-mit-China-Apples-geheimer-Pakt-6657956.html?wt_mc=intern.red.plus.newsticker.7-tage-news.teaser.teaser -
before the paid part, they say, among other things, that with no other country than the one mentioned in the url, Apple is more intimate, and that "critics say that Apple is kneeling before a dictatorship" - well, that's no news indeed.
Then, Scrivener is "sold" - especially by third-parties - as, I said, a one-stop writers' shop, i.e. a self-contained writing-machine for all phases of writing and including documentation and all, and thinking of Scrivener's spectacular success with would-be writers, I now think that Apple's, monstruous, success, cannot be comprehended by narcs' "for me, the very best only", since if that was so, many of those narcs would finally notice that Apple's NOT the best, and they would switch, but as we all know, most of them never do either.
Thus, Apple's products' TOTEM quality must lie in some other factor, I said to myself, and then, when you observe how jealously they try to CLOSE their systems, and even to the point of making it almost impossible to change the battery, glued all around under pretense of space considerations, it occurred to me that all of their really successful products (which excludes their servers and the like) are "perfect objects", not - far from that - by quality, but by gestalt.
If you think further, you will quickly discover that this totem quality has been present in other commercial objects, before Apple's rise, and there, too, it was NOT ONLY about "see, I'm rich, I can afford this" (as critics think Apple's about), but that those objects, too, are required to have MAGICAL value for their owners, be them 6- or 7-digit priced Swiss watches ("time's running out" > "You never own a xx for yourself alone" (or similar, don't remind the exact wording, and showing some top manager / corporation owner, invariably together with his young son; or 5- and 6-digit priced Swiss watches for deep sea diving (!): if your workplace's problems threaten to litterally bury you alive, ascertain yourself you bear the xx on your wrist, take a deep breath and say to yourself, the evening crowns the day - it's NOT over yet, you're not done in, it's "noch nicht aller Tage Abend"), the Meisterstück fountain pen (which promises that your signature, done with it, will not ruin you, but hopefully beneficial to you), and even the Hermès scarf (in the mid- and high 3-digit range) which even some young girls collect, in order to rebut any juvenile anxiety, by identifying with their mums - it's the only garment which they can "share", without giving their respective age, i.e. which does not separate them from each other.
Thus, it's about buying (into) a ROUNDED object, a totem, in order to possess (sic!) rest and peace, the DONE thing, instead of striving to create it, whilst the creator - it's no wonder so many successful (i.e. they must do something right, right?) artists (painters, fashion designers) just wear black, so that literally no object (seemingly "perfect" or not, then even more disturbing their creation) interferes with their sight - whilst the creator then ALLOWS for chaos, allows for crudity, for in-the-making, and gets to the FINISHED product iteratively, by hard work.
In other words, totems, be them hard- or software (or that allegedly perfect merging of both in the iPad), or just men's, women's or thirdsex's "accessories", serve to fool you about "having it already done", in work of any kind, or about "having already become a real person", by possessing that totem,
instead of using some thinking (or "innervision", as Stevie Wonder called that half a century ago) as anxiolytic while necessarily striving... striving to create, to become.
And since totems don't work in the end as expected, we've also got social media. ;-)
(They obviously have got qualified shrinks over at Cupertino. Oh, and even MS have tried something like that, with their "trendy" hardware for some time now, but Windows's too functionally ugly for such a spell for them to work out...)
22111
4/8/2022 10:47 pm
The above "time's running out" [BUT] part was misleading, the full interpretation obviously is: even when your personal time's running out indeed, and no watch in this world can stop time for you... but with our watch - you will ALL have seen their expensive ads, I'm sure, they're all over the place world-wide, in managers' magazines - the next generation will take over, any task / dream you will not be able to fulfill in person, your son (! they never ever show a girl or a thirdsex offspring: no woke with big money...) will do it for you (not only wear your watch): it's the incantation of dynasty, of gestalt power even beyond death.
(And I have to say it's one of the most powerful advertising claim I've seen in my life.)
German Gestalt (noun) = the (perfect,) finished product, and gestalten (verb) = to create (i.e. not only to produce, to make, but to make according to your ultimate will... and thus, people who fear they will not be able to do that, BUY it, pre-fabricated... poor chaps, you might say?)
But I was wrong about their sons-only... well, I was right to 95 or more cent, but lately, it seems they've even published some alibi ads: https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/patek-philippes-iconic-ad-campaign - https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertanaas/2016/12/09/patek-philippe-celebrates-20-years-of-its-iconic-advertising-campaign-you-never-actually-own-a-patek-philippe/?sh=2694f8c7475b - they call it "iconic", and indeed, iconic it is, but, well...
at the end of the day, you could even say that they sell their totem watch, by abusing (sic!) your child as the ultimate totem behind the provisional one they sell to you. Oh yeah. (Well, you couldn't pretend anymore I'd do covert advertising, now?)
(And I have to say it's one of the most powerful advertising claim I've seen in my life.)
German Gestalt (noun) = the (perfect,) finished product, and gestalten (verb) = to create (i.e. not only to produce, to make, but to make according to your ultimate will... and thus, people who fear they will not be able to do that, BUY it, pre-fabricated... poor chaps, you might say?)
But I was wrong about their sons-only... well, I was right to 95 or more cent, but lately, it seems they've even published some alibi ads: https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/patek-philippes-iconic-ad-campaign - https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertanaas/2016/12/09/patek-philippe-celebrates-20-years-of-its-iconic-advertising-campaign-you-never-actually-own-a-patek-philippe/?sh=2694f8c7475b - they call it "iconic", and indeed, iconic it is, but, well...
at the end of the day, you could even say that they sell their totem watch, by abusing (sic!) your child as the ultimate totem behind the provisional one they sell to you. Oh yeah. (Well, you couldn't pretend anymore I'd do covert advertising, now?)
22111
4/9/2022 7:54 am
The Birkin Reach-Out aka iPhone
So much for the Patek sting, and sorry for some language faults, at 1 a.m. this morning (not only 95 cent instead of 95 per cent, and so on); I also should have spoken of luxe bag ladies de luxe, carrying their allegedly necessary things around with'em in (mostly) Hermès bags in the (sometimes even higher-up, when lizard, etc) 5-digit price range, the most prominent of these named after the prettiest original carriers of'em'all, Birkin (no, not the husband) - wikipedia instructs you that one was introduced in... 1984: well, if I had some pun intended here, I would have made up that indeed! - Sometimes, a newborn even carries its heart outside of its body, and then the papers show pictures of it, half-naked; not so with Birkin bearers: you could say they buy Birkins in order to NOT have to deambulate all naked in this cruel world!
But why "necessary" then? Because of the "I might need"-"Then I don't have to think about" combination, which according to me is the motivational surface, whilst behind that lures some brain outsourcing, I pretend to glimpse - well, Marie Curie had been dead in 1984 already, so she's not availabe to prove me wrong, and there is no Curie bag, as far as I'm informed.
As implied above, the aforementioned bags start in the 5-digit price range, some rare high-4-digit versions (do they even exist anymore, with inflation an'all that?) being considered cheap and not qualified to give satisfaction - well, the German "satisfaktionsfähig" is so much superior once more, but it's too complicated to also being anglicized... they did it with "ersatz" though, and indeed, and the ersatz notion's all over the place here indeed.
Anyway, to fill the bags up, accordingly, they made Nokias (remember that age?) in gold with diamonds (just google "nokia with diamonds"), and they created the Vertu (see vertu.com, "free shipping"!), but since half-a-million dollar phones of doubtful taste are out-of-reach for most, Apple created the reach-out for virtually everyone, and so that virtually everyonce could ostensibly prove their infallible taste, by a come-handy purchase in the higher-up 3-digit range, and that's why Apple stake holder finally got really rich: the Birkin ersatz got to the schoolyard, and even in the suburbs: chapeau !
And yes, whilst the Nokia Communicator - with a real, albeit not very sturdy, keyboard! - tried to cope with the web as well as it could, the iPhone literally played with the web, put it... at your fingertips, provided you with (pseudo) mastery of its content, and that, indeed, was a revolution, the ultimate victory over the previous Birkin "yes, you prove you're rich, but you either think of ***it*** in time, or you will have to wait, sorry!" rule (wikipedia: "An "it girl" is an attractive young woman, who is perceived to have both sex appeal and a personality that is especially engaging." - a-ha! well, it's always the bearer's mind speaking, any, even nonverbal, communication being foremost subjective):
From now on, you could leave home even blank-minded, and then, you just needed the appropriate search terms (and the appropriate mobile contract), and, never-ever, you'd be all-naked in public! - now compare with the, today defunct, then deadly, classic notion of the "dumb blonde", incarnated, via brilliant acting, by Monroe and Bardot, among others, and characteristically, there is no Monroe or Bardot bag model, since for an alleged dumb blonde, the claim "I've got my brain with me" would have instantly appeared hilarious, and thus would have spontaneously back-fired.
So, the iPhone saved half of humanity, even in its non-gold, non-rosy business woman versions, and the other half got the idea that from now on, finally, it was given to anybody to appear as a mine of information, and thus it's really not surprising that Apple, financially, is where it stands: they invented the, apparent, ultimate empowering machine for Jane Doe (no pun to Birkin intended, and of any sex anyway).
And, even more, there's even interlinking coming with it, so that Jane now gets even the impression her/their thinking's enhanced (cf. the common dream of this forum's contributors, software-wise), and how then wouldn't she (always read: they) want to go into debt even, with her mobile provider, if necessary, to reach out to these spheres, formerly known to her as "their world, closed to me (must be my upbringing though, my genes are excellent)" (narc's comfort, y'know?)?
But at the end of the day, this "open up" isn't an intransitive one, it's not about thinking now, it's just about home delivery of, for most of it, indigestibles, of the same, for Jane that is, inscrutable "content" she'd always remained intellectually shy with, and btw, thinking's about creating your own links, not following others'.
Encyclopedias don't create on their own, and even delivering any knowledge there is, on paper at home, or electronicatlly to your always-on device wherever you are, will not make you (read: Jane) the necessary connections, almost any election, any poll out there proving me right.
Oh, and wikipedia on "Outbrain": "Advertisers pay Outbrain on a pay-per-click basis and a portion of that revenue is shared with publishers." - so much for, again, subliminal false promises and consequent dis-illusions.
As for "secondary benefits at least", well, I read yesterday of some (male) Jane being saved out of an avalanche (how did she get into that, to begin with, say?), by pressing some (remaining) knob on her iPhone 5 times in a row or something, and with just 3 p.c. battery power remaining: so good for her! But protagonists in movies before the millennium, i.e. before the mobile's advent, appear to me less continually, inherently agitated, hounded and rushed than their counterparts since, except for when the plot asked the former to start to run for a phone booth.
The good ol'times, then, but smart phones (or any anything else then) didn't make Jane (m/f/d) any smarter since, according to my observation that is.
So much for the Patek sting, and sorry for some language faults, at 1 a.m. this morning (not only 95 cent instead of 95 per cent, and so on); I also should have spoken of luxe bag ladies de luxe, carrying their allegedly necessary things around with'em in (mostly) Hermès bags in the (sometimes even higher-up, when lizard, etc) 5-digit price range, the most prominent of these named after the prettiest original carriers of'em'all, Birkin (no, not the husband) - wikipedia instructs you that one was introduced in... 1984: well, if I had some pun intended here, I would have made up that indeed! - Sometimes, a newborn even carries its heart outside of its body, and then the papers show pictures of it, half-naked; not so with Birkin bearers: you could say they buy Birkins in order to NOT have to deambulate all naked in this cruel world!
But why "necessary" then? Because of the "I might need"-"Then I don't have to think about" combination, which according to me is the motivational surface, whilst behind that lures some brain outsourcing, I pretend to glimpse - well, Marie Curie had been dead in 1984 already, so she's not availabe to prove me wrong, and there is no Curie bag, as far as I'm informed.
As implied above, the aforementioned bags start in the 5-digit price range, some rare high-4-digit versions (do they even exist anymore, with inflation an'all that?) being considered cheap and not qualified to give satisfaction - well, the German "satisfaktionsfähig" is so much superior once more, but it's too complicated to also being anglicized... they did it with "ersatz" though, and indeed, and the ersatz notion's all over the place here indeed.
Anyway, to fill the bags up, accordingly, they made Nokias (remember that age?) in gold with diamonds (just google "nokia with diamonds"), and they created the Vertu (see vertu.com, "free shipping"!), but since half-a-million dollar phones of doubtful taste are out-of-reach for most, Apple created the reach-out for virtually everyone, and so that virtually everyonce could ostensibly prove their infallible taste, by a come-handy purchase in the higher-up 3-digit range, and that's why Apple stake holder finally got really rich: the Birkin ersatz got to the schoolyard, and even in the suburbs: chapeau !
And yes, whilst the Nokia Communicator - with a real, albeit not very sturdy, keyboard! - tried to cope with the web as well as it could, the iPhone literally played with the web, put it... at your fingertips, provided you with (pseudo) mastery of its content, and that, indeed, was a revolution, the ultimate victory over the previous Birkin "yes, you prove you're rich, but you either think of ***it*** in time, or you will have to wait, sorry!" rule (wikipedia: "An "it girl" is an attractive young woman, who is perceived to have both sex appeal and a personality that is especially engaging." - a-ha! well, it's always the bearer's mind speaking, any, even nonverbal, communication being foremost subjective):
From now on, you could leave home even blank-minded, and then, you just needed the appropriate search terms (and the appropriate mobile contract), and, never-ever, you'd be all-naked in public! - now compare with the, today defunct, then deadly, classic notion of the "dumb blonde", incarnated, via brilliant acting, by Monroe and Bardot, among others, and characteristically, there is no Monroe or Bardot bag model, since for an alleged dumb blonde, the claim "I've got my brain with me" would have instantly appeared hilarious, and thus would have spontaneously back-fired.
So, the iPhone saved half of humanity, even in its non-gold, non-rosy business woman versions, and the other half got the idea that from now on, finally, it was given to anybody to appear as a mine of information, and thus it's really not surprising that Apple, financially, is where it stands: they invented the, apparent, ultimate empowering machine for Jane Doe (no pun to Birkin intended, and of any sex anyway).
And, even more, there's even interlinking coming with it, so that Jane now gets even the impression her/their thinking's enhanced (cf. the common dream of this forum's contributors, software-wise), and how then wouldn't she (always read: they) want to go into debt even, with her mobile provider, if necessary, to reach out to these spheres, formerly known to her as "their world, closed to me (must be my upbringing though, my genes are excellent)" (narc's comfort, y'know?)?
But at the end of the day, this "open up" isn't an intransitive one, it's not about thinking now, it's just about home delivery of, for most of it, indigestibles, of the same, for Jane that is, inscrutable "content" she'd always remained intellectually shy with, and btw, thinking's about creating your own links, not following others'.
Encyclopedias don't create on their own, and even delivering any knowledge there is, on paper at home, or electronicatlly to your always-on device wherever you are, will not make you (read: Jane) the necessary connections, almost any election, any poll out there proving me right.
Oh, and wikipedia on "Outbrain": "Advertisers pay Outbrain on a pay-per-click basis and a portion of that revenue is shared with publishers." - so much for, again, subliminal false promises and consequent dis-illusions.
As for "secondary benefits at least", well, I read yesterday of some (male) Jane being saved out of an avalanche (how did she get into that, to begin with, say?), by pressing some (remaining) knob on her iPhone 5 times in a row or something, and with just 3 p.c. battery power remaining: so good for her! But protagonists in movies before the millennium, i.e. before the mobile's advent, appear to me less continually, inherently agitated, hounded and rushed than their counterparts since, except for when the plot asked the former to start to run for a phone booth.
The good ol'times, then, but smart phones (or any anything else then) didn't make Jane (m/f/d) any smarter since, according to my observation that is.
22111
4/9/2022 3:05 pm
Sorry to be non-systematic here, I'm just brainstorming and developing a little bit, scribble-wise.
Above, that would not have been "consequent", but "consequential", of course, and other faults, sorry.
Those would-be-divers' toys' (well, totems' in fact) claim would best be described as "With Omega / Rolex / AP (Audemars Piguet: very sturdy - not just glued together as Apple fare -, very expensive), your (difficult: much is at stakes indeed, big money and all) day will not make you suffocate, but make you dive-up instead in the end, and there'll be a deep breath again beyond your current turmoil".
There is a notable exception to the rule of tablets not being creational: For perhaps 1 p.c. or an even much lesser fraction of their user base, an iPad Pro, together with its pencil and the right software, is the per perfect, ultimate replacement for your (read: their) classic Canson sketch book. - Whilst Moleskines are for phonies, and their "Bruce Chatwin" myth, even independently of his more private penchants (s/m, anyone here?) most moleskiners would very probably refrain of, running, could be qualified of one of the most laughable marketing narratives ever, hadn't it been so much efficient on those would-be crowds indeed. If you need a text or musical travel notebook, buy an Olympus DM-720 instead: it won't choke, as your handwriting might do, when taking notes - I endorse this since you might be tempted to buy a Sony UX-560 instead, for (much) better "gestalt" - even I fell for them first, I have to admit -, but they're not reliable at all (well, neither of two that is), and if you know about Sony, you know that they've got a reputation of not being reliable when it comes to after sales service, manufacturer's warranty included, and I can confirm that, too (proof on record of course).
"gestalten" would best be translated by to form, to shape, whilst "Gestalt" means the whole thing, not only its surface, as "form" or "shape" would convey, and it's fun to consider the neighborhood of the terms "creation" and "recreation" in the English language, which is not replicated in German or French for example: it's fun to have another look upon iPad and iPhone in respect to these terms, both objects being used for recreational, not creational means almost all of the time, overall, and even if the term re-creation originally meant some form of Nach-schaffen (vs. Er-schaffen, = creating-again-even-if-to-some-minor-degree vs. the original creating - sorry for again using the philosophers' language per se, but how otherwise could you fully describe what e.g. a today's violinist does when they play Mozart aut al.?), a quick look around you in any subway at rush hour will convince you your co-passengers don't read Milton e.g. and then think about what he wrote, but if they don't ingurgitate (directly or indirectly, but it's always in the 8- or 9-figures range per "paper") government-co-financed press... releases (commonly known as "news", whilst it's more or less, and more often than not, propaganda), so, if they don't (very inadequately) try to "inform" themselves, they "chat" or some:
Which is to say, the SHAPE their world - by both means -, and most of all, they shape their space-of-perception, be it by reading so-called "journalists", be it by communicating with their "contacts" (and even before school / office, just 10 minutes before seeing each other in person).
Thus, that's the layperson's way of "creation", of Gestalten, and their iPhone is their working tool - you know, I love really funny jokes (remember Deconstructing Harry's beginning, with the special-job in front of the blind woman, and then again, after the first, quite (euphemism:) "soft", hour, when shrink Kirstie Alley, in a more-or-less justified nervous breakdown of her own, dismisses her husband in front of her client?), and thus, I can only raise my hat to that genius who coined SHAPE for naming NATO's Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (near Mons, Belgium): what a brilliant joke indeed... and now, in Spring '22, even the aforementioned iPhone-gazing commuters got that!
What can I say? All those schoolgirls of any age, any sex - erenow, they were grounded after misbehaving and then getting caught, now mummy takes away their iPhone ad interim: poor little things! - literally NEED their totem, to get over their day, they EXIST in that totem, and without it, they'd consequentially feel zombied - and it's iPhone whenever they can afford it (google "iphone rental": oh, it's so funny, so much joy!), since it's the "original" - how could replicas (Samsung and all that crap, from Apple consumers' pov) ever become iconic?
But over there, in google world, there are some genial merrymen, too, since, I cite wikipedia, "An android is a humanoid robot or other artificial being often made from a flesh-like material".
Poor little things indeed!
Above, that would not have been "consequent", but "consequential", of course, and other faults, sorry.
Those would-be-divers' toys' (well, totems' in fact) claim would best be described as "With Omega / Rolex / AP (Audemars Piguet: very sturdy - not just glued together as Apple fare -, very expensive), your (difficult: much is at stakes indeed, big money and all) day will not make you suffocate, but make you dive-up instead in the end, and there'll be a deep breath again beyond your current turmoil".
There is a notable exception to the rule of tablets not being creational: For perhaps 1 p.c. or an even much lesser fraction of their user base, an iPad Pro, together with its pencil and the right software, is the per perfect, ultimate replacement for your (read: their) classic Canson sketch book. - Whilst Moleskines are for phonies, and their "Bruce Chatwin" myth, even independently of his more private penchants (s/m, anyone here?) most moleskiners would very probably refrain of, running, could be qualified of one of the most laughable marketing narratives ever, hadn't it been so much efficient on those would-be crowds indeed. If you need a text or musical travel notebook, buy an Olympus DM-720 instead: it won't choke, as your handwriting might do, when taking notes - I endorse this since you might be tempted to buy a Sony UX-560 instead, for (much) better "gestalt" - even I fell for them first, I have to admit -, but they're not reliable at all (well, neither of two that is), and if you know about Sony, you know that they've got a reputation of not being reliable when it comes to after sales service, manufacturer's warranty included, and I can confirm that, too (proof on record of course).
"gestalten" would best be translated by to form, to shape, whilst "Gestalt" means the whole thing, not only its surface, as "form" or "shape" would convey, and it's fun to consider the neighborhood of the terms "creation" and "recreation" in the English language, which is not replicated in German or French for example: it's fun to have another look upon iPad and iPhone in respect to these terms, both objects being used for recreational, not creational means almost all of the time, overall, and even if the term re-creation originally meant some form of Nach-schaffen (vs. Er-schaffen, = creating-again-even-if-to-some-minor-degree vs. the original creating - sorry for again using the philosophers' language per se, but how otherwise could you fully describe what e.g. a today's violinist does when they play Mozart aut al.?), a quick look around you in any subway at rush hour will convince you your co-passengers don't read Milton e.g. and then think about what he wrote, but if they don't ingurgitate (directly or indirectly, but it's always in the 8- or 9-figures range per "paper") government-co-financed press... releases (commonly known as "news", whilst it's more or less, and more often than not, propaganda), so, if they don't (very inadequately) try to "inform" themselves, they "chat" or some:
Which is to say, the SHAPE their world - by both means -, and most of all, they shape their space-of-perception, be it by reading so-called "journalists", be it by communicating with their "contacts" (and even before school / office, just 10 minutes before seeing each other in person).
Thus, that's the layperson's way of "creation", of Gestalten, and their iPhone is their working tool - you know, I love really funny jokes (remember Deconstructing Harry's beginning, with the special-job in front of the blind woman, and then again, after the first, quite (euphemism:) "soft", hour, when shrink Kirstie Alley, in a more-or-less justified nervous breakdown of her own, dismisses her husband in front of her client?), and thus, I can only raise my hat to that genius who coined SHAPE for naming NATO's Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (near Mons, Belgium): what a brilliant joke indeed... and now, in Spring '22, even the aforementioned iPhone-gazing commuters got that!
What can I say? All those schoolgirls of any age, any sex - erenow, they were grounded after misbehaving and then getting caught, now mummy takes away their iPhone ad interim: poor little things! - literally NEED their totem, to get over their day, they EXIST in that totem, and without it, they'd consequentially feel zombied - and it's iPhone whenever they can afford it (google "iphone rental": oh, it's so funny, so much joy!), since it's the "original" - how could replicas (Samsung and all that crap, from Apple consumers' pov) ever become iconic?
But over there, in google world, there are some genial merrymen, too, since, I cite wikipedia, "An android is a humanoid robot or other artificial being often made from a flesh-like material".
Poor little things indeed!
tightbeam
4/9/2022 5:01 pm
What in the hell...
22111
4/9/2022 5:39 pm
(The > They above, sorry.) Waiving French from the above, their "récréation" is more like "recharging of the batteries"; German's reputation of being the more precise language of'em'all is justified.
And in our context here, English / French "recreation", very far from being some additional, interpretional "creation" of its own, is far more utter consumption, most of the time together with appropriation without any additional thought, and even Twitter got aware of this, hopefully, and to combat the most blatant excesses, presumably, they then doubled their initial 144-chars limit per "message", according to what I read somewhere... or then, they possibly just wanted to make more room for (direct, and indirect) citations, dumb replication?
Anyway, I adore that double-entendre in the "message" term... and you know what they say about the decisiveness of "messages" endless repetition, whatever their content; Twitter knows, at any rate.
But at the end of the day, it should be that modern mix of your (always read: Jane's) thinking you create when in fact you consume (ideas and all) that makes the irrefutable-for-most attraction of those new offerings of outsourcing your being, most of the time...
Having made possible by that revolution indeed which made that now, consumption doesn't consume-up anymore, as had been the rule though generations before, with very few exceptions (reading, viewing plays, listening to music... then Gaumont invented the movies...) to that ancient rule...
and with that most blatant exception indeed to that rule ever, "church going" or any other form of partaking in cult, and listening to what they told you there, reading, theatre and so on not really being for the masses in those times.
And today, we're simply back to then, to archaic times - you see, the implications of "iPhone's cult" are much wider than you (always read: Jane, again) probably will have suspected - but this time for almost all of us - and even reading (so-called "longer" texts that is, and of any quality) is in - permit the pun - vigorous retreat.
In other words, it's not the masses who adopted "elites'" behaviors and predilections, it's the other round, not full-time yet I admit though, but then, look at the ballot to more precisely ascertain the overall situation, beyond pure wishful thinking.
In the meanwhile, the French had a wonderful term for that, then much more time-limited phenomenon: s'encanailler...
whilst that term, too, has become obsolete by the sheer facts of today. To infer that, "today, canaille's everywhere" would a little bit harsh in its wording, but then, what you typically find in iPhone's storage (cloud or in-phone), may make you rethink some premature, idealistic presumptions.
And for most of the rest, they will have erased it in time: e.g. European Union and other top politicians, anyone? Which reminds me of the fact that those centuries ago I've evoked above, the elites had counted very few in numbers, just as it's the trend now again.
In-between, that had been child-play, in so-called "developed societies", and to mask that, real revolution while it goes, they info us now, and no, I don't wanna say inform, I say info, from "to info": they pour the same crap all over the masses as they did then, they just empower us now to juggle around it at will, provided it's the crap coming from them, and you (i.e. Jane's) iPhone and all make the endless replication of their ancient, then much more difficult to organize, cult "services".
An'yeah, I adore the double-entendre of that now ubiquitous, muck "service" term - so much for "software / info / whatever crap as a service", with or without automatic "adaptation" (read: rise) of your subscriptions.
In the ancient times, servants were (ok, lousily, most of the time, but) paid; now they pay for being allowed to valet, and that's even (euphemism:) some otherwise quite smart people among them. (icon:) Shrug.
And in our context here, English / French "recreation", very far from being some additional, interpretional "creation" of its own, is far more utter consumption, most of the time together with appropriation without any additional thought, and even Twitter got aware of this, hopefully, and to combat the most blatant excesses, presumably, they then doubled their initial 144-chars limit per "message", according to what I read somewhere... or then, they possibly just wanted to make more room for (direct, and indirect) citations, dumb replication?
Anyway, I adore that double-entendre in the "message" term... and you know what they say about the decisiveness of "messages" endless repetition, whatever their content; Twitter knows, at any rate.
But at the end of the day, it should be that modern mix of your (always read: Jane's) thinking you create when in fact you consume (ideas and all) that makes the irrefutable-for-most attraction of those new offerings of outsourcing your being, most of the time...
Having made possible by that revolution indeed which made that now, consumption doesn't consume-up anymore, as had been the rule though generations before, with very few exceptions (reading, viewing plays, listening to music... then Gaumont invented the movies...) to that ancient rule...
and with that most blatant exception indeed to that rule ever, "church going" or any other form of partaking in cult, and listening to what they told you there, reading, theatre and so on not really being for the masses in those times.
And today, we're simply back to then, to archaic times - you see, the implications of "iPhone's cult" are much wider than you (always read: Jane, again) probably will have suspected - but this time for almost all of us - and even reading (so-called "longer" texts that is, and of any quality) is in - permit the pun - vigorous retreat.
In other words, it's not the masses who adopted "elites'" behaviors and predilections, it's the other round, not full-time yet I admit though, but then, look at the ballot to more precisely ascertain the overall situation, beyond pure wishful thinking.
In the meanwhile, the French had a wonderful term for that, then much more time-limited phenomenon: s'encanailler...
whilst that term, too, has become obsolete by the sheer facts of today. To infer that, "today, canaille's everywhere" would a little bit harsh in its wording, but then, what you typically find in iPhone's storage (cloud or in-phone), may make you rethink some premature, idealistic presumptions.
And for most of the rest, they will have erased it in time: e.g. European Union and other top politicians, anyone? Which reminds me of the fact that those centuries ago I've evoked above, the elites had counted very few in numbers, just as it's the trend now again.
In-between, that had been child-play, in so-called "developed societies", and to mask that, real revolution while it goes, they info us now, and no, I don't wanna say inform, I say info, from "to info": they pour the same crap all over the masses as they did then, they just empower us now to juggle around it at will, provided it's the crap coming from them, and you (i.e. Jane's) iPhone and all make the endless replication of their ancient, then much more difficult to organize, cult "services".
An'yeah, I adore the double-entendre of that now ubiquitous, muck "service" term - so much for "software / info / whatever crap as a service", with or without automatic "adaptation" (read: rise) of your subscriptions.
In the ancient times, servants were (ok, lousily, most of the time, but) paid; now they pay for being allowed to valet, and that's even (euphemism:) some otherwise quite smart people among them. (icon:) Shrug.
MadaboutDana
4/11/2022 10:18 am
Okay, no, I'm sorry, I don't agree with the – despite all the complexity of your prose – simplistic labelling of Apple as a totem or cult.
Something I've mentioned before on this forum, but will mention again:
a) we moved over to macOS when Windows 7 first came out. Why? Because the idea of trying to train my (mostly remote) team on Windows 7 gave me the screaming heebie-jeebies.
As a direct result of this shift, my life (as a sysadmin) has become SO much easier. The number of user problems, complaints, major unresolvable issues etc. has plunged; resolving the ones that do happen has become so much easier. Please note that I'm making the comparison with Windows 2000, which was – in Microsoft terms – relatively straightforward and simple to use/administrate.
b) I've tried hard – in view of Apple prices – to move over to Android for smartphones, because you can get really rather nice Android smartphones for very little money nowadays.
But I've ended up (three times now) coming back to Apple simply because the Apple environment is so well integrated compared to everyone else (and, by the by, far more secure than Android). By that I mean, I can rely on Apple devices to talk to each other without exotic scripts or setups. The most exotic thing I've had to do recently is set up Sidecar to use my iPad as an extended screen for my MacBook Pro – and Sidecar is still in beta, so will no doubt become even easier to set up in the near future. Otherwise, iPhones just work.
And that sums up the true reason for Apple's popularity (as my elderly mother would agree): on the whole, it just works. No, it's not perfect, but it's far more reliable and elegant than anyone else out of the box (I'm aware that Linux proponents will argue that you can set up a far more reliable, far more secure ecosystem using all-Linux solutions, but don't tell me they work out of the box!).
For a sysadmin working at remote, this is a huge relief – not an invitation to totemic worship! ;-)
There are also some truly gorgeous Apple apps out there. Just sayin'!
Cheers,
Bill
Something I've mentioned before on this forum, but will mention again:
a) we moved over to macOS when Windows 7 first came out. Why? Because the idea of trying to train my (mostly remote) team on Windows 7 gave me the screaming heebie-jeebies.
As a direct result of this shift, my life (as a sysadmin) has become SO much easier. The number of user problems, complaints, major unresolvable issues etc. has plunged; resolving the ones that do happen has become so much easier. Please note that I'm making the comparison with Windows 2000, which was – in Microsoft terms – relatively straightforward and simple to use/administrate.
b) I've tried hard – in view of Apple prices – to move over to Android for smartphones, because you can get really rather nice Android smartphones for very little money nowadays.
But I've ended up (three times now) coming back to Apple simply because the Apple environment is so well integrated compared to everyone else (and, by the by, far more secure than Android). By that I mean, I can rely on Apple devices to talk to each other without exotic scripts or setups. The most exotic thing I've had to do recently is set up Sidecar to use my iPad as an extended screen for my MacBook Pro – and Sidecar is still in beta, so will no doubt become even easier to set up in the near future. Otherwise, iPhones just work.
And that sums up the true reason for Apple's popularity (as my elderly mother would agree): on the whole, it just works. No, it's not perfect, but it's far more reliable and elegant than anyone else out of the box (I'm aware that Linux proponents will argue that you can set up a far more reliable, far more secure ecosystem using all-Linux solutions, but don't tell me they work out of the box!).
For a sysadmin working at remote, this is a huge relief – not an invitation to totemic worship! ;-)
There are also some truly gorgeous Apple apps out there. Just sayin'!
Cheers,
Bill
Amontillado
4/11/2022 12:06 pm
Bill, you forgot that lovely Unix heart beating inside MacOS. But it's OK. It just works. You don't have to think about it. :-)
22111
4/11/2022 12:14 pm
Notwithstanding some special, particular, "useful" uses of mobile devices which I don't deny, iPhone / Android mobiles are a world-wide "mass phenomenon", a phenomenon of the now allegedly "empowered" masses, and I'm trying her to identify that phenomenon.
Please allow one, just one - I will not try to give follow-up proofs of my point, promised! -, but brilliant exemplification of what I've been trying to say above, about the pseudo-empowerment of the masses who, by "SHARING" "NEWS" from and by their iPhone / Android mobile, feel - in fact fool themselves - they, now and with the advent of the new technology (hardware plus software = "social media" "contributive access", (that they) "have their say now", (that they) can "create" "something of their own", in lives where, otherwise and at most, a child or two is or are created by them and their spouse (of some time, in most cases and in most Western countries now, as far as the "white" population is concerned), and so, with all that alienation on the workplace, they now believe they have found "their" "ideal" "device of expression", whilst I've said above, most of the time, they just replicate - citing, sometimes even rewording: wow! - the propaganda they receive as "news", thus volunteering as multiplication valets of and for the forces in power, in their respective jurisdictions - with this empowerment illusion, it's no wonder they so highly value their iPhone and such: there, they find a fulfilling "existence", which they neither find at the workplace, nor at home anymore, and their device becomes existential ersatz, they outsource their own life into the device which is far more than just a communication instrument, but, as said, a totem for their existence itself. (And to give just one example, cf. the studies pretending that with more and love-over-web, there was less and less love-in-person.)
And indeed, it's a revolution that for the first time in history, the traditional term of "consumption", "to consume", which erenow meant "aufbrauchen", "use / eat up", become available to the masses (I mentioned reading, then the movies, radio, TV), not earlier than just about a century ago, for non-consuming (sic! that's the English term!) activities, i.e. of that ilk which doesn't (inherently at least) render them poorer than before (well, there are public libraries, there is Netflix... whilst some Hollywood cinemas seem to charge rather admission prices indeed, but of course, we're not speaking of the consumers' purse in the end, but of the object of consumption, and that, now, will leave on indeed, and that's the first revolution.
With the second revolution just having taken place some years ago, and before our eyes, by iPhone (and its replicas of any quality) - since before the iPhone, and as said, there had finally been non-consuming (thus "free" in some ways: thus access / (partly) availability for the masses) consumption: you read "papers" (often quite expensive on paper, or then, some of them in some parts, free", even on-screen), and it had been like that for about a century: you (always continue to read: Jane m/f/d) had read, had listened to radio, had watched television... but then, for sharing your experience, your multiplication factor remained very low, for most of us, and you had to convey your views-on-news to your addressees one-by-one, mostly, and lately, even within the family: remember, even before the kids got their own mobile, they had got their own room, their own tv set, for many of them, so father preaching to his family (the Germans, again, have got a just wonderful term for it: "zu den Seinen"), sitting and listening to his voice around the dining table, that's a concept which had already died with the Fifties, and you will perhaps remember that old ad with a dog (sic!) in such a deferent position, in front of a records player(s attached horn).
But now, the SHARING AGE came to the masses, and gave'em back THEIR voice, allegedly, not just for replicating the voice of their master (cf. the doggie ad), and on an unconscious level, people got back their own voice indeed, since it was the babbling toddler's one they once had, both form- and content-wise, before their parents - in most cases that is, and that applies everything I say - had more or less silenced it, since it went onto their nerves.
Eureka then, the masses got their voice back... but to very poor use I'm afraid, and the rare voices which tried to be heard with their own thoughts, instead of echoing what they read, heard, saw - i.e. were shown: seeing's believing, but cutting's the mastery, not only in movies -, those rare voices quickly learned they were discarded from almost any public discourse, not only by means of group dynamics, but more and more but elementary technical measures (and with the eager help of third-world countries' men and women who often had to feed more than just 1 or 2 children's mouths, them now more and more at risk though, AI taking over).
Ok now, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4aVKaMn9EM - it's from the YT "presence" of one of the very big German publishing houses, "Zeit" (von Holtzbrinck / von Holtzbrinck heirs, some say they're both billionaires, I don't dare verify).
The video (published in this form by Zeit today) is part of a self-defending statement of a now German federal minister who, as a German "Bundesland" ("state") minister, was according to some - I don't dare comment - (co-? predominantly?) responsible for a 3-digit body count last summer), let's assume here: not at all.
Zeit says, legally responsible for the video - and thus, also for its current form, published by Zeit though? - is Reuters, but Zeit perfectly know what they are doing by publishing it in this form, even if the following is done by Reuters.
Then, Zeit - not Reuters - ask for your "comprehension" that they cannot "moderate" (i.e. censor) comments below "all news videos", but then, this video is not a news video but one the finest propaganda masterpieces I've ever encountered.
Since, to the end of that video, there is an almost imperceptible cut where the minister (who's paid about 20,000 € a month, possibly 13 or 14 times p.a., can't say for sure) stops and addresses her (public relations?) aide standing to her right, asking for advice and tentatively suggesting, "Jetzt muss ich es noch irgendwie abbinden..." - I have heard that's public relations speak, now using the technical intransitive verb setting (of cement or concrete) now transitive to hammer the "message" (cf. my musings supra about that term's double-entendres) of your narrative into the recipient's brain.
And now, submissive Zeit readers will multiply this de-information by sharing it, probably in the 6- or 7-digit numbers, all over the "social media", and most of them - you all know the term of "info bubble" (and most other big "news"paper corporations in Germany have done similar, albeit not in such incredibly professional way...) will even believe they thus share "information"...
Whilst in fact, they will have been infoed, and now info (not inform, but de-form their addressees' knowledge, "experience", brains) half a million, or even millions, of other - who on their turn will do the same, all of them valeting the government and the government's agenda.
Most (?) of'em people (not sure in this "Zeit" situation for the term "most", since their readers think they're are "elite", many of them being paid, lavishly paid by the State, but the term "most" will certainly apply in general, for the masses that is) who seriously think they make use of their new empowerment, make use of "free speech", and have their voice back finally: in a word, they think: it's revolution time!
But then, Scott Heron all said it in 1970 already: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised:
"The revolution will be no re-run, brothers
The revolution will be live"
Obviously, that will be for next time if there is any which I doubt; this time, instrumenting you even better than ever before, they just had you, optimizing make-belief.
(And another 134 dead people, our'ass, some of'em obviously say.)
So that's why I am so much against iPhone and the rest, and not even speaking of'em gps-sing an'spying on you an'all that.
Please allow one, just one - I will not try to give follow-up proofs of my point, promised! -, but brilliant exemplification of what I've been trying to say above, about the pseudo-empowerment of the masses who, by "SHARING" "NEWS" from and by their iPhone / Android mobile, feel - in fact fool themselves - they, now and with the advent of the new technology (hardware plus software = "social media" "contributive access", (that they) "have their say now", (that they) can "create" "something of their own", in lives where, otherwise and at most, a child or two is or are created by them and their spouse (of some time, in most cases and in most Western countries now, as far as the "white" population is concerned), and so, with all that alienation on the workplace, they now believe they have found "their" "ideal" "device of expression", whilst I've said above, most of the time, they just replicate - citing, sometimes even rewording: wow! - the propaganda they receive as "news", thus volunteering as multiplication valets of and for the forces in power, in their respective jurisdictions - with this empowerment illusion, it's no wonder they so highly value their iPhone and such: there, they find a fulfilling "existence", which they neither find at the workplace, nor at home anymore, and their device becomes existential ersatz, they outsource their own life into the device which is far more than just a communication instrument, but, as said, a totem for their existence itself. (And to give just one example, cf. the studies pretending that with more and love-over-web, there was less and less love-in-person.)
And indeed, it's a revolution that for the first time in history, the traditional term of "consumption", "to consume", which erenow meant "aufbrauchen", "use / eat up", become available to the masses (I mentioned reading, then the movies, radio, TV), not earlier than just about a century ago, for non-consuming (sic! that's the English term!) activities, i.e. of that ilk which doesn't (inherently at least) render them poorer than before (well, there are public libraries, there is Netflix... whilst some Hollywood cinemas seem to charge rather admission prices indeed, but of course, we're not speaking of the consumers' purse in the end, but of the object of consumption, and that, now, will leave on indeed, and that's the first revolution.
With the second revolution just having taken place some years ago, and before our eyes, by iPhone (and its replicas of any quality) - since before the iPhone, and as said, there had finally been non-consuming (thus "free" in some ways: thus access / (partly) availability for the masses) consumption: you read "papers" (often quite expensive on paper, or then, some of them in some parts, free", even on-screen), and it had been like that for about a century: you (always continue to read: Jane m/f/d) had read, had listened to radio, had watched television... but then, for sharing your experience, your multiplication factor remained very low, for most of us, and you had to convey your views-on-news to your addressees one-by-one, mostly, and lately, even within the family: remember, even before the kids got their own mobile, they had got their own room, their own tv set, for many of them, so father preaching to his family (the Germans, again, have got a just wonderful term for it: "zu den Seinen"), sitting and listening to his voice around the dining table, that's a concept which had already died with the Fifties, and you will perhaps remember that old ad with a dog (sic!) in such a deferent position, in front of a records player(s attached horn).
But now, the SHARING AGE came to the masses, and gave'em back THEIR voice, allegedly, not just for replicating the voice of their master (cf. the doggie ad), and on an unconscious level, people got back their own voice indeed, since it was the babbling toddler's one they once had, both form- and content-wise, before their parents - in most cases that is, and that applies everything I say - had more or less silenced it, since it went onto their nerves.
Eureka then, the masses got their voice back... but to very poor use I'm afraid, and the rare voices which tried to be heard with their own thoughts, instead of echoing what they read, heard, saw - i.e. were shown: seeing's believing, but cutting's the mastery, not only in movies -, those rare voices quickly learned they were discarded from almost any public discourse, not only by means of group dynamics, but more and more but elementary technical measures (and with the eager help of third-world countries' men and women who often had to feed more than just 1 or 2 children's mouths, them now more and more at risk though, AI taking over).
Ok now, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4aVKaMn9EM - it's from the YT "presence" of one of the very big German publishing houses, "Zeit" (von Holtzbrinck / von Holtzbrinck heirs, some say they're both billionaires, I don't dare verify).
The video (published in this form by Zeit today) is part of a self-defending statement of a now German federal minister who, as a German "Bundesland" ("state") minister, was according to some - I don't dare comment - (co-? predominantly?) responsible for a 3-digit body count last summer), let's assume here: not at all.
Zeit says, legally responsible for the video - and thus, also for its current form, published by Zeit though? - is Reuters, but Zeit perfectly know what they are doing by publishing it in this form, even if the following is done by Reuters.
Then, Zeit - not Reuters - ask for your "comprehension" that they cannot "moderate" (i.e. censor) comments below "all news videos", but then, this video is not a news video but one the finest propaganda masterpieces I've ever encountered.
Since, to the end of that video, there is an almost imperceptible cut where the minister (who's paid about 20,000 € a month, possibly 13 or 14 times p.a., can't say for sure) stops and addresses her (public relations?) aide standing to her right, asking for advice and tentatively suggesting, "Jetzt muss ich es noch irgendwie abbinden..." - I have heard that's public relations speak, now using the technical intransitive verb setting (of cement or concrete) now transitive to hammer the "message" (cf. my musings supra about that term's double-entendres) of your narrative into the recipient's brain.
And now, submissive Zeit readers will multiply this de-information by sharing it, probably in the 6- or 7-digit numbers, all over the "social media", and most of them - you all know the term of "info bubble" (and most other big "news"paper corporations in Germany have done similar, albeit not in such incredibly professional way...) will even believe they thus share "information"...
Whilst in fact, they will have been infoed, and now info (not inform, but de-form their addressees' knowledge, "experience", brains) half a million, or even millions, of other - who on their turn will do the same, all of them valeting the government and the government's agenda.
Most (?) of'em people (not sure in this "Zeit" situation for the term "most", since their readers think they're are "elite", many of them being paid, lavishly paid by the State, but the term "most" will certainly apply in general, for the masses that is) who seriously think they make use of their new empowerment, make use of "free speech", and have their voice back finally: in a word, they think: it's revolution time!
But then, Scott Heron all said it in 1970 already: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised:
"The revolution will be no re-run, brothers
The revolution will be live"
Obviously, that will be for next time if there is any which I doubt; this time, instrumenting you even better than ever before, they just had you, optimizing make-belief.
(And another 134 dead people, our'ass, some of'em obviously say.)
So that's why I am so much against iPhone and the rest, and not even speaking of'em gps-sing an'spying on you an'all that.
Stephen Zeoli
4/11/2022 12:16 pm
I am not a tech specialist, but having a foot in both Windows and Mac environments, I agree entirely with Bill. I hate Windows (which I probably would not, if I didn't have the Mac experience to compare it to). And I find the apps for Mac to be far more creative and useful. For instance, I don't think there is anything on Windows that compares to Agenda, Noteplan or OmniOutliner (with the possible exception of InfoQube) for elegance and utility. Admittedly, with so many of the apps I use regularly being browser-based, this distinction is becoming less crucial.
My computer service company, which is a two man team, used to be an Apple retailer, but Apple took the franchise away because they didn't sell enough. They now are Lenovo dealers. If anyone would have a reason to resent Apple it is them. But when I spoke to them recently about getting a Window laptop to access browser apps, they told me I was crazy, that MacBooks are ten times the machines Windows PCs are. (They may not have said "ten times.") They were eschewing a possible sale to recommend I stick with my Mac! That's an endorsement that's hard to ignore.
Steve Z.
MadaboutDana wrote:
My computer service company, which is a two man team, used to be an Apple retailer, but Apple took the franchise away because they didn't sell enough. They now are Lenovo dealers. If anyone would have a reason to resent Apple it is them. But when I spoke to them recently about getting a Window laptop to access browser apps, they told me I was crazy, that MacBooks are ten times the machines Windows PCs are. (They may not have said "ten times.") They were eschewing a possible sale to recommend I stick with my Mac! That's an endorsement that's hard to ignore.
Steve Z.
MadaboutDana wrote:
And that sums up the true reason for Apple's popularity (as my elderly
mother would agree): on the whole, it just works. No, it's not perfect,
but it's far more reliable and elegant than anyone else out of the box
(I'm aware that Linux proponents will argue that you can set up a far
more reliable, far more secure ecosystem using all-Linux solutions, but
don't tell me they work out of the box!).
For a sysadmin working at remote, this is a huge relief – not an
invitation to totemic worship! ;-)
There are also some truly gorgeous Apple apps out there. Just sayin'!
satis
4/11/2022 2:09 pm
I've used Macs and Windows each for decades. I vastly prefer macOS for its more sublime user interface, and with the new M-series chips and their class-leading power-per-watt they blow away any other laptop I've ever used for power and battery life.
22111
4/11/2022 4:30 pm
Two things. About 1 hour after my post here, the minister I had referred to throw the towel (i.e. about 9 months after the "facts"...), BUT that wasn't the "press" which triggered that, in its overwhelming majority trying to "protect" her, even in an "untenable" situation, but their own pairs, the "executive committee" of her own party (no more details from me since I ostensibly do NOT try to do specific "politics" here, my point being social criticism), had had voted against her remaining in office by 6:0 (obviously not counting her own vote), but after initial refusal to listen to that, she obviously gave in, and from then on only, the affair now gets sort of the press coverage it should have got from start on, instead of protecting the person by many means, thus triggering the parroting of the narrative "poor, unjustly persecuted woman" by thousands / millions within the "social media", and obviously, it's always debatable if "what they systematically leave out from the news" are the core parts of it or just "details", but then, systematically, the leaving-out serve the official narratives, so the assumption that the left-out parts are very well chosen, not aleatory, can't be refuted easily.
Whilst my point is "mobile devices serve to oppress the population, by having do most of the work for that by their users themselves", it's perfectly ok to discuss speed considerations between Mac OS and Windows OS, and the general allegation that the former is "prettier", and probably even functionally more pleasant, than the latter, is very probably true, too.
But it's a fact that most Mac users use their devices "as they are", without what I call "spicing them up", i.e. do some scripting, or use ready-made scripts / macros, in order to get a - functionally - much (!) better interaction (i.e. also in terms of significant time savings every day) with their machine than they would get out-of-the-box, and while most particular Windows users might do as them, i.e. do nothing about that, corporations, not only big ones, systematically try to do exactly that, i.e. optimize that interaction of their employees with their Windows machines - I admit that in the graphics industries, there are widely-used macro presets, e.g. for the main Adobe stuff, and some even do individual "macroing", but that's quite a tiny part, and I also suppose that the relative lack of (stationary) Macs in general administration and so on is due to this (not technically foisted) "lack" of "individualization" means.
Fact is, for Windows machines, there is plenty of macro and scripting software available, and even for individuals, AutoHotkey and AutoIt have both "communities" counting millions of users, with very "live" interchanges, both in their dedicated fora as "all over the web", on "stackoverflow", "superuser" and many, many more such platforms, and any Windows "power user" will, sooner or later, come across the options such scripting languages provide them, even if then they don't do much more than applying some shared "tricks"; in the corporate world, it's more and more Python which is applied for such tasks.
On the other hand though, for Mac, whenever I look into such fora (mostly with regards to writers' applications), I always see that users ask if some special task (within one application or in team play between two) is possible, then they are told, it is not, then they express their frustration, and that's it, whilst for 90 p.c. of their questions, I could come up with a quick-n-easy solution within minutes, the 10 p.c. remaining ones demanding real scripting indeed in case... all this if they had worked on Windows hardware; as some here will remember, Manfred Kühn, years ago, share lots of such macros, scriptlets in his (defunct?) takingnotenow blog, again for Windows.
From these observations combined, I then inferred, probably hastily, that even Mac power users usually use their machine as it comes (after the installation of their respective applications), whilst Windows power users have a much stronger tendency to "spice up" their machine, and it's a fact that such a machine, may it run on Windows or MacOS, is really powerful, and only then, my scripts e.g. being "worth", at least, 2 hours spared a day, every day, whilst both my (not-too recent) Intel i7 and i5 processors run, 98 p.c. of the time, at less than 10 p.c. capacity (which on Windows you can check by the "Task Manager" or other tools, similar for Macs I'm sure), and since most of the contributors of this forum "do text", much more than graphics (where processor power and that is decisive indeed), your real-life situation should be quite similar, most of the time, which would then make "power" discussions, in our context, a little bit futile.
There might be powerful Mac scripting tools though, and those might even be used by many, notwithstanding the fact that for graphics, most of your macro needs are very basic, the "work" being done by the application(s), and the macros just being shortcuts for key (combination) sequences, whilst for text work, the power lies within the scripting, and thus, it's no accident that power users (journalists), in their time, mostly used XyWrite (= "Euroscript" in Europe), corporate derivatives of that, or then WordPerfect, doing the "scripting", as in XyWrite, within the program itself - nowadays, we've got a whole "internal scripting" ecosystem for MS Word... the Windows version, significantly, since the Mac version is said so much inferior.
Thus, at the end of the day, I got the impression - which may be erroneous - that whoever in need of real control, continues to prefer Windows, exceptions to this rule, as to any, given.
Whilst my point is "mobile devices serve to oppress the population, by having do most of the work for that by their users themselves", it's perfectly ok to discuss speed considerations between Mac OS and Windows OS, and the general allegation that the former is "prettier", and probably even functionally more pleasant, than the latter, is very probably true, too.
But it's a fact that most Mac users use their devices "as they are", without what I call "spicing them up", i.e. do some scripting, or use ready-made scripts / macros, in order to get a - functionally - much (!) better interaction (i.e. also in terms of significant time savings every day) with their machine than they would get out-of-the-box, and while most particular Windows users might do as them, i.e. do nothing about that, corporations, not only big ones, systematically try to do exactly that, i.e. optimize that interaction of their employees with their Windows machines - I admit that in the graphics industries, there are widely-used macro presets, e.g. for the main Adobe stuff, and some even do individual "macroing", but that's quite a tiny part, and I also suppose that the relative lack of (stationary) Macs in general administration and so on is due to this (not technically foisted) "lack" of "individualization" means.
Fact is, for Windows machines, there is plenty of macro and scripting software available, and even for individuals, AutoHotkey and AutoIt have both "communities" counting millions of users, with very "live" interchanges, both in their dedicated fora as "all over the web", on "stackoverflow", "superuser" and many, many more such platforms, and any Windows "power user" will, sooner or later, come across the options such scripting languages provide them, even if then they don't do much more than applying some shared "tricks"; in the corporate world, it's more and more Python which is applied for such tasks.
On the other hand though, for Mac, whenever I look into such fora (mostly with regards to writers' applications), I always see that users ask if some special task (within one application or in team play between two) is possible, then they are told, it is not, then they express their frustration, and that's it, whilst for 90 p.c. of their questions, I could come up with a quick-n-easy solution within minutes, the 10 p.c. remaining ones demanding real scripting indeed in case... all this if they had worked on Windows hardware; as some here will remember, Manfred Kühn, years ago, share lots of such macros, scriptlets in his (defunct?) takingnotenow blog, again for Windows.
From these observations combined, I then inferred, probably hastily, that even Mac power users usually use their machine as it comes (after the installation of their respective applications), whilst Windows power users have a much stronger tendency to "spice up" their machine, and it's a fact that such a machine, may it run on Windows or MacOS, is really powerful, and only then, my scripts e.g. being "worth", at least, 2 hours spared a day, every day, whilst both my (not-too recent) Intel i7 and i5 processors run, 98 p.c. of the time, at less than 10 p.c. capacity (which on Windows you can check by the "Task Manager" or other tools, similar for Macs I'm sure), and since most of the contributors of this forum "do text", much more than graphics (where processor power and that is decisive indeed), your real-life situation should be quite similar, most of the time, which would then make "power" discussions, in our context, a little bit futile.
There might be powerful Mac scripting tools though, and those might even be used by many, notwithstanding the fact that for graphics, most of your macro needs are very basic, the "work" being done by the application(s), and the macros just being shortcuts for key (combination) sequences, whilst for text work, the power lies within the scripting, and thus, it's no accident that power users (journalists), in their time, mostly used XyWrite (= "Euroscript" in Europe), corporate derivatives of that, or then WordPerfect, doing the "scripting", as in XyWrite, within the program itself - nowadays, we've got a whole "internal scripting" ecosystem for MS Word... the Windows version, significantly, since the Mac version is said so much inferior.
Thus, at the end of the day, I got the impression - which may be erroneous - that whoever in need of real control, continues to prefer Windows, exceptions to this rule, as to any, given.
22111
4/11/2022 5:46 pm
I'm afraid the aforementioned blog, whilst not having been updated for some time indeed, and for the sad reasons Prof. Kühn had shared, has been deleted?:
http://takingnotenow.blogspot.com/ - "Sorry, the blog at takingnotenow.blogspot.com has been removed. This address is not available for new blogs." - a step beyond which, according to me, would not have been necessary by any means, but then, it might be that after years of inactivity, blogspot automatically deleted dormant blogs, independently of general interest with regards to their content. In this case, this is much sadder than being a mere pity.
http://takingnotenow.blogspot.com/ - "Sorry, the blog at takingnotenow.blogspot.com has been removed. This address is not available for new blogs." - a step beyond which, according to me, would not have been necessary by any means, but then, it might be that after years of inactivity, blogspot automatically deleted dormant blogs, independently of general interest with regards to their content. In this case, this is much sadder than being a mere pity.
satis
4/12/2022 12:13 am
That was 2 things? lol
jsamlarose
4/12/2022 3:14 pm
https://web.archive.org/web/20201021201608/http://takingnotenow.blogspot.com/
It's still available in an archived state.
22111 wrote:
It's still available in an archived state.
22111 wrote:
I'm afraid the aforementioned blog, whilst not having been updated for
some time indeed, and for the sad reasons Prof. Kühn had shared,
has been deleted?:
http://takingnotenow.blogspot.com/ - "Sorry, the blog at
takingnotenow.blogspot.com has been removed. This address is not
available for new blogs." - a step beyond which, according to me, would
not have been necessary by any means, but then, it might be that after
years of inactivity, blogspot automatically deleted dormant blogs,
independently of general interest with regards to their content. In this
case, this is much sadder than being a mere pity.
jsamlarose
4/12/2022 3:26 pm
I'm not sure I understand the full thrust of the argument(s) here. Something like: iOS bad, macOS better, Windows and Linux best?
Just wanted to hoist my flag: I was a macOS stalwart until 2017, shortly after the release of the original 9.7" iPad Pro. That was around the time the iPad became the device I spent more of my time on. The balance has continued to skew in the direction of iPadOS since then, to the extent that I currently do about 95% of my computing on an iPad (I flip between a 12.9 and a Mini), with the occasional fallback to a 2016 MacBook (the most I've opened it this year is to update settings for a mechanical keyboard).
This is not to argue that iPadOS can be a productive platform for everyone. And lord knows I'm wary of ways I've read about the App Store being managed and the treatment that some developers have reportedly received that runs counter to innovation and counter to pushing the boundaries of what can be done on mobile devices. Nonetheless, iPadOS (and by extension, iOS) can be remarkably functional. I regularly get writing, project management, personal knowledge management and a host of other work done on my devices.
These devices may come with limitations and even encouraged or idealised patterns of use. Fortunately, that's not the whole story.
Just wanted to hoist my flag: I was a macOS stalwart until 2017, shortly after the release of the original 9.7" iPad Pro. That was around the time the iPad became the device I spent more of my time on. The balance has continued to skew in the direction of iPadOS since then, to the extent that I currently do about 95% of my computing on an iPad (I flip between a 12.9 and a Mini), with the occasional fallback to a 2016 MacBook (the most I've opened it this year is to update settings for a mechanical keyboard).
This is not to argue that iPadOS can be a productive platform for everyone. And lord knows I'm wary of ways I've read about the App Store being managed and the treatment that some developers have reportedly received that runs counter to innovation and counter to pushing the boundaries of what can be done on mobile devices. Nonetheless, iPadOS (and by extension, iOS) can be remarkably functional. I regularly get writing, project management, personal knowledge management and a host of other work done on my devices.
These devices may come with limitations and even encouraged or idealised patterns of use. Fortunately, that's not the whole story.
MadaboutDana
4/13/2022 9:45 am
I think 22111's divagations have raised an interesting point about user inertia. The simple truth is, the easier it is to use an operating system, the less technical awareness is required.
Long before we switched over to Macs, I found myself (as a Windows sysadmin!) advising Mac users on how best to use their machines, because they had no clue about even the most basic file management issues that even non-technical Windows users must swiftly learn to master (if only for survival purposes). This was fascinating – at the time, I didn't even have a Mac, although I did eventually invest in one of those Bondi Blue numbers and became very fond of it.
The iPhone is, as 22111 rightly remarks, a system that requires very little technical awareness. Most users don't even bother to run through and optimise the Settings app – that's already too much trouble.
On the other hand, making the iPhone responsible for users' enzombification (if I may be permitted the coinage) is a little unfair. Despite the iPhone's huge success, Android is by far the more widely used OS (for very good reason: Android phones are vastly cheaper), and most users exchanging news, personal info, photos etc. are doing so from Android phones (admittedly influenced by the iPhone model).
Ironically, heavyweight influencers, who are often very savvy on a technical level, tend to use iPhones, because (a) social status and (b) very high-quality images/video (plus, I suggest, (c) ease of transfer to their macOS-powered devices where all the heavyweight Photoshopping is done).
While the whole issue of enzombification is a fascinating one, making Apple solely responsible for this trend is unfair. It would be more appropriate, perhaps, to lay the blame at the feet of the social media giants who have turned the Internet into their very own walled gardens. Now that, I feel, is the real issue we have to deal with, based on direct personal experience.
A close Gen-Y member of the family who is immensely media-savvy (with suitable marketing qualifications to boot) switches effortlessly between multiple social media apps on all of her (admittedly Apple) devices. No worries! Totally hip 'n' trending, dude!
But she doesn't use Google. At all. In fact, has to be constantly reminded that Google (or any other Internet-wide search engine) is a really useful source of info.
I find this absolutely fascinating! Despite her wide trawls across social media, despite her regular support for others who want to get up to speed on social media, she has no real idea how to go about in-depth research using an online search engine. And little interest in doing so. Wow.
Does anybody else have that experience?
Cheers!
Bill
Long before we switched over to Macs, I found myself (as a Windows sysadmin!) advising Mac users on how best to use their machines, because they had no clue about even the most basic file management issues that even non-technical Windows users must swiftly learn to master (if only for survival purposes). This was fascinating – at the time, I didn't even have a Mac, although I did eventually invest in one of those Bondi Blue numbers and became very fond of it.
The iPhone is, as 22111 rightly remarks, a system that requires very little technical awareness. Most users don't even bother to run through and optimise the Settings app – that's already too much trouble.
On the other hand, making the iPhone responsible for users' enzombification (if I may be permitted the coinage) is a little unfair. Despite the iPhone's huge success, Android is by far the more widely used OS (for very good reason: Android phones are vastly cheaper), and most users exchanging news, personal info, photos etc. are doing so from Android phones (admittedly influenced by the iPhone model).
Ironically, heavyweight influencers, who are often very savvy on a technical level, tend to use iPhones, because (a) social status and (b) very high-quality images/video (plus, I suggest, (c) ease of transfer to their macOS-powered devices where all the heavyweight Photoshopping is done).
While the whole issue of enzombification is a fascinating one, making Apple solely responsible for this trend is unfair. It would be more appropriate, perhaps, to lay the blame at the feet of the social media giants who have turned the Internet into their very own walled gardens. Now that, I feel, is the real issue we have to deal with, based on direct personal experience.
A close Gen-Y member of the family who is immensely media-savvy (with suitable marketing qualifications to boot) switches effortlessly between multiple social media apps on all of her (admittedly Apple) devices. No worries! Totally hip 'n' trending, dude!
But she doesn't use Google. At all. In fact, has to be constantly reminded that Google (or any other Internet-wide search engine) is a really useful source of info.
I find this absolutely fascinating! Despite her wide trawls across social media, despite her regular support for others who want to get up to speed on social media, she has no real idea how to go about in-depth research using an online search engine. And little interest in doing so. Wow.
Does anybody else have that experience?
Cheers!
Bill
Stephen Zeoli
4/13/2022 5:43 pm
Bill,
I am glad to have you interpreting 22111's savagely long posts.
All technology, as it advances, takes users away from the nuts and bolts. People used to tune their own cars. A long time ago, you had to signal your intent to turn right or left with a hand signal out the window. How many people still do that or even know that's a thing?
I would guess that the actual number of people who are technically savvy with their devices hasn't changed, or has gone up. But since so many (virtually all) people are using the technologies, the percent of those who are technically savvy has dropped dramatically.
I worked on DOS PCs for almost a decade. I knew some of the basic DOS commands because I needed to know them. Thank heavens I don't need that knowledge anymore and couldn't remember it now even if you stuck me in front of a DOS machine.
If people who use MacOS or iOS devices are less savvy about the technical aspects of their devices, I'd say that was a win for Apple.
Steve Z.
I am glad to have you interpreting 22111's savagely long posts.
All technology, as it advances, takes users away from the nuts and bolts. People used to tune their own cars. A long time ago, you had to signal your intent to turn right or left with a hand signal out the window. How many people still do that or even know that's a thing?
I would guess that the actual number of people who are technically savvy with their devices hasn't changed, or has gone up. But since so many (virtually all) people are using the technologies, the percent of those who are technically savvy has dropped dramatically.
I worked on DOS PCs for almost a decade. I knew some of the basic DOS commands because I needed to know them. Thank heavens I don't need that knowledge anymore and couldn't remember it now even if you stuck me in front of a DOS machine.
If people who use MacOS or iOS devices are less savvy about the technical aspects of their devices, I'd say that was a win for Apple.
Steve Z.
MadaboutDana
4/14/2022 9:05 am
Hey @Steve, I entirely agree about the growing gap between users and technology (my wife used to service her old Mini Cooper back in the day, to the extent of regularly winching the engine out of the vehicle to give it a good clean! We haven't attempted that since opening the bonnet/hood of our Fiat Uno Turbo – and then hastily shutting it again).
On the other hand, it's a philosophical issue, isn't it? I mean, file management is (still) a fairly fundamental part of the UX, and what used to fascinate me is the number of Mac users who quite simply lost files on a regular basis. They were on the machine, but they couldn't find them – nor had they the least idea how to go about finding them.
Discovering how Finder and Spotlight *really* work was a revelation for them! Modern macOS systems tend to automatically save documents to the "Documents" folder – but even then, there are a whole bunch of apps that automatically default to iCloud (not the easy-to-access user folders, the much less accessible CloudKit part), and good luck with finding anything in there (unless you're familiar with Spotlight).
I predict the next major UX revolution will come with a complete revision of the file system. Indeed, Microsoft had something like that in mind for Windows 2000's successor (based, I believe, on SQL Server), but they suddenly cancelled it at the last minute and nothing's been heard of it since. A fully relational DBMS as the backend for a file system would be a fascinating thing, but maybe – even back then – they realised that even a relational DBMS is essentially limiting (remember, this was long before the advent of today's non-SQL systems like MongoDB, so kudos to them!).
Once people really don't need to know where files are, but can manipulate them effortlessly from wherever, computer OSes will have reached a new apogee! I'm afraid I don't regard the iOS/iPadOS walled garden approach (whereby each app has its own group of files) as an adequate solution – the fact that the Files app was greeted with such enthusiasm/relief suggests that Apple users don't, either.
Just a morning ramble, sorry about that!
Cheers,
Bill
On the other hand, it's a philosophical issue, isn't it? I mean, file management is (still) a fairly fundamental part of the UX, and what used to fascinate me is the number of Mac users who quite simply lost files on a regular basis. They were on the machine, but they couldn't find them – nor had they the least idea how to go about finding them.
Discovering how Finder and Spotlight *really* work was a revelation for them! Modern macOS systems tend to automatically save documents to the "Documents" folder – but even then, there are a whole bunch of apps that automatically default to iCloud (not the easy-to-access user folders, the much less accessible CloudKit part), and good luck with finding anything in there (unless you're familiar with Spotlight).
I predict the next major UX revolution will come with a complete revision of the file system. Indeed, Microsoft had something like that in mind for Windows 2000's successor (based, I believe, on SQL Server), but they suddenly cancelled it at the last minute and nothing's been heard of it since. A fully relational DBMS as the backend for a file system would be a fascinating thing, but maybe – even back then – they realised that even a relational DBMS is essentially limiting (remember, this was long before the advent of today's non-SQL systems like MongoDB, so kudos to them!).
Once people really don't need to know where files are, but can manipulate them effortlessly from wherever, computer OSes will have reached a new apogee! I'm afraid I don't regard the iOS/iPadOS walled garden approach (whereby each app has its own group of files) as an adequate solution – the fact that the Files app was greeted with such enthusiasm/relief suggests that Apple users don't, either.
Just a morning ramble, sorry about that!
Cheers,
Bill
Stephen Zeoli
4/14/2022 12:47 pm
Bill,
I definitely bow to your greater technical experience (written without an ounce of sarcasm), and no need to apologize for an engaging ramble!
Steve
MadaboutDana wrote:
I definitely bow to your greater technical experience (written without an ounce of sarcasm), and no need to apologize for an engaging ramble!
Steve
MadaboutDana wrote:
Hey @Steve, I entirely agree about the growing gap between users and
technology (my wife used to service her old Mini Cooper back in the day,
to the extent of regularly winching the engine out of the vehicle to
give it a good clean! We haven't attempted that since opening the
bonnet/hood of our Fiat Uno Turbo – and then hastily shutting
it again).
On the other hand, it's a philosophical issue, isn't it? I mean, file
management is (still) a fairly fundamental part of the UX, and what used
to fascinate me is the number of Mac users who quite simply lost files
on a regular basis. They were on the machine, but they couldn't find
them – nor had they the least idea how to go about finding them.
Discovering how Finder and Spotlight *really* work was a revelation for
them! Modern macOS systems tend to automatically save documents to the
"Documents" folder – but even then, there are a whole bunch of
apps that automatically default to iCloud (not the easy-to-access user
folders, the much less accessible CloudKit part), and good luck with
finding anything in there (unless you're familiar with Spotlight).
I predict the next major UX revolution will come with a complete
revision of the file system. Indeed, Microsoft had something like that
in mind for Windows 2000's successor (based, I believe, on SQL Server),
but they suddenly cancelled it at the last minute and nothing's been
heard of it since. A fully relational DBMS as the backend for a file
system would be a fascinating thing, but maybe – even back then
– they realised that even a relational DBMS is essentially
limiting (remember, this was long before the advent of today's non-SQL
systems like MongoDB, so kudos to them!).
Once people really don't need to know where files are, but can
manipulate them effortlessly from wherever, computer OSes will have
reached a new apogee! I'm afraid I don't regard the iOS/iPadOS walled
garden approach (whereby each app has its own group of files) as an
adequate solution – the fact that the Files app was greeted with
such enthusiasm/relief suggests that Apple users don't, either.
Just a morning ramble, sorry about that!
Cheers,
Bill