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jazzfishThe Hard Edge of Empire: "We know about the real world of the era steampunk is riffing off. And the picture is not good." Ladies and gentlemen, Charlie Stross has come through with the "steampunk sucks because fuck the victorians" post that I no longer feel any need to write. See also Nisi Shawl, who is currently on chapter 5 of her cotton-gin-punk novel.
(Side note: I have never understood the insistence that Tim Powers's The Anubis Gates, a novel of magical time travel in which deep sorcery and Egyptian mythology feature quite prominently, is somehow "proto-steampunk." What are these people smoking? It's not even Victorian, it's... whatever the era before Victorian was. Williamic? Georgian, I guess.)
Been using the currently-nameless Macbook for a couple of days now. (Apparently when Apple said "Ships in 3-5 days" they actually meant "Ships in 3-5 hours.") I'm... enjoying my seduction quite a bit. Physically it's got a lot of really nice little touches: the magnetic power connector that lights up amber for "charging" or green for "charged" when it's connected, the button and lights on the side that tell me how much battery's left, the ease with which the lid opens, the overall slimness (it's the same footprint as Tiresias, my Dell, but it's about half as thick, so it'll just barely fit in the laptop pocket of the Big Blue Bag). If I weren't worried about voiding the warranty I'd get it etched.
The OS and I are still getting used to each other. I'm liking the Dock, I think, now that I've moved it to the left side of the screen. I don't like how easy OSX has made it to include a spell-check, because now I have to go through and turn that off for every single program I use. Installing software is ridiculously easy once I got over the conceptual hurdle of "disk image," and uninstalling it seems nearly as simple. Unless I'm missing something, which is always possible. I've yet to be convinced by Exposé and haven't tried using Spaces.
The thing I was most afraid of, the change in keyboard shortcuts, isn't as big a deal as I'd expected. I do something, and it doesn't do what I expect, and I think "oh, right, i need to use my thumb not my pinky," and after a few minutes of that the thumb motion becomes intuitive. It's a little more awkward than I'd prefer but it's doable.
I'm also displeased by the lack of PgUp, PgDn, and Delete. Home and End I can work around, but I maintain that those three really ought to be single-key actions. Grr.
What's really bugging me is the difficulty of keyboard menu interaction. In Windows, hitting ALT by itself puts focus on the menu of whatever program you're in. Each menu is assigned a letter, usually the first letter in the menu name, and typing that letter opens that menu. From which you can hit the letter associated with the menu option you're trying to activate. Or you can nagivate through the menus with the arrow keys. Whatever works for you.
The way to focus on the menu in OSX is with CTRL+F2. Or Fn+CTRL+F2 if you're on a laptop. Then you type the name of the menu until OSX can tell what name you're typing, and then you type the name of the menu option until it can tell what you want to do.
In Windows I use the keyboard to access menus a heck of a lot: part and parcel with my distaste for pointing devices. Which is, as it turns out, a distaste for having to move my hands out from "typing" position. Having to stretch one hand across the entire keyboard to hit CTRL and Fn at the bottom and F2 at the top definitely qualifies as "out of typing position." This is going to be seriously frustrating, for quite some time.
Overall... I'm still worried that I've spent too much money on too much computer, and that I would have been fine at about 2/3 the cost. Which I think means I'm reasonably happy with it.
(Side note: I have never understood the insistence that Tim Powers's The Anubis Gates, a novel of magical time travel in which deep sorcery and Egyptian mythology feature quite prominently, is somehow "proto-steampunk." What are these people smoking? It's not even Victorian, it's... whatever the era before Victorian was. Williamic? Georgian, I guess.)
Been using the currently-nameless Macbook for a couple of days now. (Apparently when Apple said "Ships in 3-5 days" they actually meant "Ships in 3-5 hours.") I'm... enjoying my seduction quite a bit. Physically it's got a lot of really nice little touches: the magnetic power connector that lights up amber for "charging" or green for "charged" when it's connected, the button and lights on the side that tell me how much battery's left, the ease with which the lid opens, the overall slimness (it's the same footprint as Tiresias, my Dell, but it's about half as thick, so it'll just barely fit in the laptop pocket of the Big Blue Bag). If I weren't worried about voiding the warranty I'd get it etched.
The OS and I are still getting used to each other. I'm liking the Dock, I think, now that I've moved it to the left side of the screen. I don't like how easy OSX has made it to include a spell-check, because now I have to go through and turn that off for every single program I use. Installing software is ridiculously easy once I got over the conceptual hurdle of "disk image," and uninstalling it seems nearly as simple. Unless I'm missing something, which is always possible. I've yet to be convinced by Exposé and haven't tried using Spaces.
The thing I was most afraid of, the change in keyboard shortcuts, isn't as big a deal as I'd expected. I do something, and it doesn't do what I expect, and I think "oh, right, i need to use my thumb not my pinky," and after a few minutes of that the thumb motion becomes intuitive. It's a little more awkward than I'd prefer but it's doable.
I'm also displeased by the lack of PgUp, PgDn, and Delete. Home and End I can work around, but I maintain that those three really ought to be single-key actions. Grr.
What's really bugging me is the difficulty of keyboard menu interaction. In Windows, hitting ALT by itself puts focus on the menu of whatever program you're in. Each menu is assigned a letter, usually the first letter in the menu name, and typing that letter opens that menu. From which you can hit the letter associated with the menu option you're trying to activate. Or you can nagivate through the menus with the arrow keys. Whatever works for you.
The way to focus on the menu in OSX is with CTRL+F2. Or Fn+CTRL+F2 if you're on a laptop. Then you type the name of the menu until OSX can tell what name you're typing, and then you type the name of the menu option until it can tell what you want to do.
In Windows I use the keyboard to access menus a heck of a lot: part and parcel with my distaste for pointing devices. Which is, as it turns out, a distaste for having to move my hands out from "typing" position. Having to stretch one hand across the entire keyboard to hit CTRL and Fn at the bottom and F2 at the top definitely qualifies as "out of typing position." This is going to be seriously frustrating, for quite some time.
Overall... I'm still worried that I've spent too much money on too much computer, and that I would have been fine at about 2/3 the cost. Which I think means I'm reasonably happy with it.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-28 07:14 pm (UTC)Also, if you find yourself getting more miles out of the F-key functionality of the top row of keys than the custom mac functions, you can invert the function of the Fn key.
I think you'd previously expressed little desire to have to customize the hell out of things, but I thought I'd mention it just in case it's irritating enough to make you want to change it.
BTW, you got it WRONG, The Dock belongs on the RIGHT ;)
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Date: 2010-10-29 01:40 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2010-10-29 02:00 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2010-10-29 12:25 pm (UTC)I'm a fan of Exposé. It's like knocking the huge cluttered pile of papers off the desk, but as soon as I triumphantly grab the piece I was after, the piles politely pick themselves up off the floor and go back where they were.
rockynomad
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