rainedin

People on the post's comments are suggesting that RSS only has technical followers.

Really we should be talking about feeds and subscriptions. Wording needs to be friendlier: add my friend's feed or follow Kate Bush. It doesn't matter what the technology is so much underneath. RSS and Atom are meaningless to the general public and only confuse matters. But I think they'd grok the idea of following an interest or person, or giving feedback to a post, a thing, or a happening.

Summary: The author thinks Google+ could have been saved (or been electrified) if they had integrated Reader.

I still fail to really grasp what Google+ is.

I'd actually rather a de-centralised platform. And prefer a glorious feed organiser.

Very simple open comment/status feed APIs would be more beneficial for the community at large with a pub/sub mechanism that was easy to understand and utilise.

Add an RSS feed for a news website, add a Twitter feed, or friend, add a Facebook (channel for a better word), or whatever. Organise these somehow. Integrate privacy controls. This would probably suit a next generation browser rather than an online silo.

Multiple account use is borked. I was logged in under one account the other day, but wanted to leave a Youtube comment from another. But it just wasn't possible at the time. I gave up in the end. The UI is a disparate mess. I am not a fan of the one account rules all doctrine, especially when I can't switch to another with ease. I perceive myself as a competent web user, I've been surfing the web since Netscape on Win 3.1. Fail.

The killer app for video calling, would be one in which you don't have to hold the camera. We'd rather place the phone to our ear. And the current alternative is probably nostril cam. We each need a Lakitu.

I was really excited to read the idea about advert blocking, but when I donned my glasses, this is what I saw:

http://blog.ctnews.com/meyers/files/2010/11/lethem2.jpg

;)

Other musings....

Remote options:

* Connect on demand * Low bandwidth mode * Offline mode

Shares:

* Share file/directory (and some kind of authentication mechanism) * Resource uris * Show public shares * One time downloads * Expiring downloads

Version control:

* View log/history * Retrieve older version / Roll-back

Hypothetically:

File Manager -> Settings -> Remote storage -> add remote

Choose from:

dropbox, google drive, skydrive, others..., other (some open api)

Select > Authenticate > Mount points > Bring online

Something like that would be nice.

It would be a good to compare apps to sites.

The only app I installed on the Blackberry (my brief foray into smartphones...), was the independent app (newspaper), and I preferred accessing news through that than the website. A very simple interface that let me get to news quickly. I could even download the news up front over WIFI and then read it on the train without a data connection.

But then I don't want to have to download an app for every news outet. So you start thinking perhaps there should be a general news app and so on. One general app feels a little more managable.

That and the apparent insecurity, or my own personal lack of understanding of application security that puts me off of even owning something like an Android device. For now I'm more comfortable with web pages.

It's difficult enough managing bookmarks. I'd feel hemmed in with apps on a smartphone, if I had to order icons, select and install applications. I don't think I could be bothered.

Having said that it has pretty much always been about the software. If I was compelled enough, I'd take the rough with the smooth.

I have limited mobile/smartphone/app experience.

It feels that Desktop apps are sorely neglected. Spotify for example feels really ancient, a weird UI for such a popular product. I only assume the mobile versions are more logical and easier to use. I wouldn't want to immitate the desktop versions. So I read your comment as somethnig like the immitation of Apple's cover flow. And yes in that way I agree.

Do you think it's the lack of standardisation of menuing/navigation/paging in web pages/sites that isn't helping matters?

That's a good thing though right? Isn't that how a URI/link should work?

That's funny. I've always found it very readable. I have also ridiculed it in the past. Probably unfairly. These days I actually have a soft spot for the font.

I really like the update.

I guess if you have your liquid waste contained within closed loop then you can get around drought issues.

Making black water potable I'd guess uses more energy and resources than recycling grey. I bet a victorian sewage system couldn't work without gallons of water either. An alternative might be to defacate in our gardens if we have them.

Piss by itself isn't that harmful, you can use it on the garden. I piss frequently into a watering can.

It's suggested that there is no benefit washing your hands with hot water with regard to hygeine.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/ist/?next=/smartnews/2013/12/w...

I pretty much always wash my hands with cold water, unless they are especially grimey. The only advantage is that hot water seems to work better with soap, which may help dislodge dirt easier.

Ask a personal question... but do you use your other hand to scrub or just try and jet wash?

Not having foot taps is another huge bug bear of mine. Especially in public places.

I had a good book titled 'Humanure' that stated that the sitting posture is quite unnatural and drop toilets or rather throne-less were better for us.

At university (UK) I couldn't work out why some toilets had shit all over them, like people just evacuated all over the seats. I thought: what animals/dirty tricksters! After reading that book I realised that it was non-uk students who were struggling with the UK style toilets.

Some suggest standing on the throne as a compromise, but it's a bit precarious, and it's not nice if you miss the target.

I prefer squat toilets myself, as long as they are kept clean.

There's some software called CoFind:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1084804500...

Which was a bookmarking tool, that enabled you to create your own scoring system with multiple facets. Like the Slashdot: Insightful, Funny... You can't have too many of these as it can get unweildy (probably why Facebook settled for the Thumbs up), but it could help. Especially for a community that sees the outcome value and are prepared to learn and contribute towards community moderation.

Up and down votes are so ambiguous that I'd almost suggest they are practically pointless. The 'Mee too' and 'I don't agree' votes really need to be filtered out into something else. Perhaps into a 'Consensus' facet. Add to the mix 'Topicness' : 'On topic', 'Off topic'; 'Niceness': 'Pleasant', 'Rude' etc.

Word cap each comment too, so they remain to the point. Essays can be linked to.

I"d hardly say hitting one key with your finger is a keyboard shortcut. Some noobs, hate the pointer when they first encounter it, and will avoid it if possible.

On the plus side, it's a large key that does not require simultaneous key presses: holding down multiple keys at the same time is not user friendly, especially for noobs.

The backspace frequently has a backwards arrow printed on it, so symbolically it feels right.

Personally I find web pages that break common shortcuts, and navigation paradigms more irritating. Google+ changes the behaviour of CTRL+PGUP/PGDOWN, some sites hijack the spacebar (normally I use for paging), some sites hijack CTRL+CLICK that I use to open links in new tabs.

I never hear people bemoaning the use of the Home key to go to the home page, and its different behaviour in text input areas. But I can appreciate some people don't like it how the controls appear to change, depending on what you are doing, it's far from obvious for some people.

I find The issue with text controls in browsers, is one of focus, thinking that you are in text area, when you aren't etc. The browsers could really help here, by making it really obvious which form element has the focus. It's doubly annoying when you are have focus on a flash component, and none of your keyboard shortcuts feel like they work. I'm a keyboard fan, but really without having some exotic setup, you are reliant upon the mouse with the mainstream OSs because of irritations like these. Which is really irritating for me when I'm trying to do simple things with just the keyboard sitting on the sofa with a computer connected to the TV.