There was also the change (in all of Office, not just Outlook) to the white, whiter, and whitest views, which have not only annoyed a bunch of people because they're a literal pain to look at, but also made it impossible to determine by looking whether an Office app has focus. I suppose if you're running everything full screen, that doesn't matter. But Outlook running full screen on my dual 1920x1280 monitors would look pretty silly.
"the ribbon is an improvement (once you got used to it) IMO." MMMV. I've had it for however many years (our IT department is an early adopter), and I'm still not liking it.
Yeah, and not only does it have these lousy color schemes, I defy you to tell by looking whether it has keyboard focus. That's because they took away the top bar, which used to be a dark color if an app had focus, and a greyer color if it didn't. So you could tell at a glance where your keystrokes would go.
IANARS, and I'm not denying you have a point, but I think there's a lot of vibration inside a rocket. Some of it chaotic, some of it periodic. Sooner or later that vibration's going to shake something loose. Could be a fuel line weld, could be a lot of things. The longer the rocket fires (and the more times it starts up), the more likely it is that something's going to break next time.
There's also the issue of testing, because testing can cause something to break that was working before. That's what happened to Apollo 13.
@slasher99: I agree: zero tolerance is the problem. But I also agree with whistlingtony (below) who blames stupidity: stupidity of the people who set up a zero tolerance policy without thinking through what that might mean, and stupidity on the part of people who apply a zero tolerance policy. There are times to break rules. (As it happens, we remember in this season one who broke rules when to do so was the right thing: John 4:7-9, Luke 5:30, Matthew 15:1-10, Matthew 15:21-28, Matthew 22:16-21, and more.)
I wish I still had the email from my first Internet (or maybe it was Arpanet) purchase back in 1986. I think it would be worth something as an antique.
Of course it wasn't the kind of Internet purchase you'd make now. Some guy was advertising a used portable dishwasher on usenet.forsale.washington.kingcounty.net (or something like that). His wife had probably been telling him he was crazy, he should take out an ad in one of the paper want-ads they had back then. And I had been telling my wife she didn't need a dishwasher, she married one, but somehow she didn't believe me. Turned out the guy was maybe ten or twenty miles from us. We completed the deal in person (cash or check, don't remember), and I took it home. I suspect both our wives were astonished at what their geeky husbands had done.
A year or two later, we shipped it to Colombia when we moved there. A few years after that, we returned to the US, and sold it for probably what we had paid plus shipping.
So yes, I'd like to have that guy's usenet posting, and my email to him.
I'm not sure which data sample you're referring to, but the math doesn't rely on the kind of data sample you'd get from observations of planets orbiting stars; it just requires knowing the size of a star's disk from the perspective of a hypothetical planet orbiting that star at a hypothetical distance. We know from other observations what the diameter of various kinds of stars is, so we can calculate the rest.
At first I doubted whether the alignment of binary stars' orbits had anything to do with the alignment of planetary systems. Planetary systems condense out of disks that form as individual stars collapse out of gas and begin to spin up. So the disks--and the eventual planetary systems--are presumably aligned with the equator of the spinning stars. But binary stars, I would have thought, arise from gravitational capture in multi-star systems.
But in fact my guess was wrong: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.... So yes, I guess the alignment of binary stars' orbits does have s.t. to do with the ecliptic of single star systems.
About the orbital plane of the other planetary systems: yes, it's a very low probability that any given star would have its planets' orbital planes appropriately aligned. However, the math is simple, allowing one to extrapolate from the small number of Solar-system like planetary systems that happen to be aligned, to the overall population of Solar system-like planetary systems. And one can also calculate the % of stars whose planetary orbits ought to be aligned vs. the number of systems we observe, to give the number of stars in the larger population that have planetary systems at all (or at least that have planetary systems that would be detectable if they were aligned; I suppose it's possible there might be planetary systems with only very small planets, which would not be detectable by this method even if aligned).
And of course the chances that a planetary system will be aligned is arbitrary. Even if it weren't (if they tended to be aligned to the galactic plane, for instance), one could compute the probabilities by sampling in multiple directions.
I am no expert in any of this, but it seems to me that the author of the Shetl-Optimized blog understands this quite well, and explains it as well: http://www.scottaaronson.com/b....
We've had attacks in Paris and in San Bernadino where unencrypted communications were used and the attacks were not disrupted.
True, but how many attacks were disrupted? We don't know. You can't evaluate something by saying it missed X until you know whether X was 1 out of 1, or 1 out of 1000.
Unless all the planets these hypothetical observers can see happen to be tidally locked, and they assume that's normal, then the relevant period is one planetary rotation, not one revolution. In our solar system, rotation periods range from ten hours or so (Jupiter and Saturn) to one revolution (Mercury, about 60 days--tidally locked), to more than one revolution (Venus). Planetary revolutions range from about 60 days (Mercury) to 165 Earth years (Neptune, with Pluto even longer). Having a lifespan of > 1 planetary rotation is therefore not absurd, in fact most life on Earth lives much longer than that.
Slashdot Mirror
I dunno about them PHBs, but us PhDs can understand plenty gud.
The Egyptians Liked hieroglyphics for thousands of years, why can't you?
Never mind that they were replaced by alphabetic writing (which, ahem, is what menus use).
Wrong. :-)
FYI, I'm selling my clay tablets and my reed stylus on cBay (cuneiformBay).
All seriousness aside, I agree 110% with you. Windows and Office reached the epitome of usability around 2006, and it's been all downhill since.
There was also the change (in all of Office, not just Outlook) to the white, whiter, and whitest views, which have not only annoyed a bunch of people because they're a literal pain to look at, but also made it impossible to determine by looking whether an Office app has focus. I suppose if you're running everything full screen, that doesn't matter. But Outlook running full screen on my dual 1920x1280 monitors would look pretty silly.
"the ribbon is an improvement (once you got used to it) IMO." MMMV. I've had it for however many years (our IT department is an early adopter), and I'm still not liking it.
"lack of a suggested alternative": I know, the USPO!
Oh...
Yeah, and not only does it have these lousy color schemes, I defy you to tell by looking whether it has keyboard focus. That's because they took away the top bar, which used to be a dark color if an app had focus, and a greyer color if it didn't. So you could tell at a glance where your keystrokes would go.
Since these decay so fast, perhaps one of them should be called Unobtainium.
I predict that most of these predictions will not come true. Possibly including this prediction.
IANARS, and I'm not denying you have a point, but I think there's a lot of vibration inside a rocket. Some of it chaotic, some of it periodic. Sooner or later that vibration's going to shake something loose. Could be a fuel line weld, could be a lot of things. The longer the rocket fires (and the more times it starts up), the more likely it is that something's going to break next time.
There's also the issue of testing, because testing can cause something to break that was working before. That's what happened to Apollo 13.
@slasher99: I agree: zero tolerance is the problem. But I also agree with whistlingtony (below) who blames stupidity: stupidity of the people who set up a zero tolerance policy without thinking through what that might mean, and stupidity on the part of people who apply a zero tolerance policy. There are times to break rules. (As it happens, we remember in this season one who broke rules when to do so was the right thing: John 4:7-9, Luke 5:30, Matthew 15:1-10, Matthew 15:21-28, Matthew 22:16-21, and more.)
"Tar will probably still be here long after I am gone." Yes, but will anyone know how to use the tar command? http://xkcd.com/1168/
I wish I still had the email from my first Internet (or maybe it was Arpanet) purchase back in 1986. I think it would be worth something as an antique. Of course it wasn't the kind of Internet purchase you'd make now. Some guy was advertising a used portable dishwasher on usenet.forsale.washington.kingcounty.net (or something like that). His wife had probably been telling him he was crazy, he should take out an ad in one of the paper want-ads they had back then. And I had been telling my wife she didn't need a dishwasher, she married one, but somehow she didn't believe me. Turned out the guy was maybe ten or twenty miles from us. We completed the deal in person (cash or check, don't remember), and I took it home. I suspect both our wives were astonished at what their geeky husbands had done. A year or two later, we shipped it to Colombia when we moved there. A few years after that, we returned to the US, and sold it for probably what we had paid plus shipping. So yes, I'd like to have that guy's usenet posting, and my email to him.
I stopped worrying about TV when they cut the various Stargate series.
Mos Eisley?
No... it is, as you said in your first sentence, a distance. Unless you're trying to make a joke.
I'll be glad to post my opinion, just as soon as someone pays me. (Don't I wish...)
Perhaps the spiral arms will have wound up by the time you get there.
I'm not sure which data sample you're referring to, but the math doesn't rely on the kind of data sample you'd get from observations of planets orbiting stars; it just requires knowing the size of a star's disk from the perspective of a hypothetical planet orbiting that star at a hypothetical distance. We know from other observations what the diameter of various kinds of stars is, so we can calculate the rest.
At first I doubted whether the alignment of binary stars' orbits had anything to do with the alignment of planetary systems. Planetary systems condense out of disks that form as individual stars collapse out of gas and begin to spin up. So the disks--and the eventual planetary systems--are presumably aligned with the equator of the spinning stars. But binary stars, I would have thought, arise from gravitational capture in multi-star systems. But in fact my guess was wrong: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.... So yes, I guess the alignment of binary stars' orbits does have s.t. to do with the ecliptic of single star systems.
About the orbital plane of the other planetary systems: yes, it's a very low probability that any given star would have its planets' orbital planes appropriately aligned. However, the math is simple, allowing one to extrapolate from the small number of Solar-system like planetary systems that happen to be aligned, to the overall population of Solar system-like planetary systems. And one can also calculate the % of stars whose planetary orbits ought to be aligned vs. the number of systems we observe, to give the number of stars in the larger population that have planetary systems at all (or at least that have planetary systems that would be detectable if they were aligned; I suppose it's possible there might be planetary systems with only very small planets, which would not be detectable by this method even if aligned). And of course the chances that a planetary system will be aligned is arbitrary. Even if it weren't (if they tended to be aligned to the galactic plane, for instance), one could compute the probabilities by sampling in multiple directions.
I am no expert in any of this, but it seems to me that the author of the Shetl-Optimized blog understands this quite well, and explains it as well: http://www.scottaaronson.com/b....
We've had attacks in Paris and in San Bernadino where unencrypted communications were used and the attacks were not disrupted.
True, but how many attacks were disrupted? We don't know. You can't evaluate something by saying it missed X until you know whether X was 1 out of 1, or 1 out of 1000.
I'm working on growing bigger trees.
Unless all the planets these hypothetical observers can see happen to be tidally locked, and they assume that's normal, then the relevant period is one planetary rotation, not one revolution. In our solar system, rotation periods range from ten hours or so (Jupiter and Saturn) to one revolution (Mercury, about 60 days--tidally locked), to more than one revolution (Venus). Planetary revolutions range from about 60 days (Mercury) to 165 Earth years (Neptune, with Pluto even longer). Having a lifespan of > 1 planetary rotation is therefore not absurd, in fact most life on Earth lives much longer than that.