17:42: #(2002 6 28 16 7)

I've got this horrible suspicion that not having a desk at which to fiddle with my computer has been warping my mind.

I think that I produce differently when I'm sitting at a good desk than when I'm not. I haven't used my desktop' system in forever, and I've spent a lot of time at the laptop. Maybe that's not good.

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07:04: #(2002 6 28 5 54)

Hrm. I'm considering just bouncing HTML e-mail....

Of course, that'd render mail from all of my friends using Hotmail and such unreadable. Grumble....

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17:17: #(2002 6 26 17 17)

Funny -- (Emphasis mine:)

Well, let's look at the facts regarding computers and numbers: 100 / 3 * 3 == 100 will always be false because computers don't understand fractions the way humans do, and can only store an approximation of many fractions

[7d2.6.1a-00: meta-source]

[Reply]

20:58: #(2002 6 21)

current dp2 #{triangle:}#

• requests
• scene-inhabitants
• truths/applications

[7d2.6.15-00: meta-source]

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03:32: #(2002 6 17 3 9)

I'm trying to use Nautilus, again.

Dammit.

Every time I try to use a desktop-metaphoric system, it strikes me, just how stupid the desktop-metaphor is. The fact is that, even if I manage to put something useful on the desktop..., well, I the fact is that I can't put anything useful on the desktop, because, if it goes on the desktop, it's always covered up! It can't be useful if it's always covered up--if I can never get at it, if I can never even see it.

A palette metaphor might be good. Add stuff to the palette, pull stuff from the palette. Mix stuff on the palette--I can't even mix things in a file-manager or on a desktop. Well, I could mix things on my desktop, but it'd be messy and be frowned upon by `civilised' society.

The key is that the palette would be just like any other item with which I (the user) interacts. It'd show up in the same lists. It'd be cyclable with the same keys. It'd be managable by the same management-primitives.

A meaningful and useful parent/child display-/window-relationship would be nice to have, too....

A general run-time display-extension mechanism would be really nice to have.

I wonder if, some day, I'll write a general display-system of some sort. I wonder if it'd be better best to build it atop X11, or atop some widget-set GTK+, or to interface directly to the hardware, or what.... Interfacing with the hardware, I'd need an X11-compatibility application. If I just implemented on top of X11, then I wouldn't have that problem. I also wouldn't need to write bit-twiddling hardware-driver code.

[7d2.6.11-00: meta-source]

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