It is very simple to ad some JavaScript to a webpage that checks to see if the page has been modified in anyway or specifically if some important content is still there.
You can add any JS you want, it will not be executed in my browser anyway. If the site refuses to work without JS I either go elsewhere (if this is just a casual browsing) or use a different browser (like Chrome) - but that would be for professional sites, like ti.com, which do not have 3rd party ads.
But even if there are laws against removal of info from pages, they still cannot make it mandatory for you to watch content that you do not want to see. You'd have to do a multiple choice question on the content of the ad to enter the site (with a one-time cookie) - and who would want to jump through so many hoops just to read a blog?
It depends on how many dissimilar computers you have behind the router. In some cases it is highly advisable to have the standard Internet filtered through a proxy in the router, with an option to bypass the proxy for some specific need.
I currently have FF with all adblocking functions enabled (NoScript, Adblock Plus, Ghostery, and a few more.) This is used for everyday browsing. Professional sites are accessed with IE (no adblocking) or with Chrome (light adblocking with Adblock Plus only.)
Avg. SSI for disabled is $1,111, a minimum wage job at $7.25 is about $1250 a month, or $1160 every 4 weeks
This is only true if you are employed full time. This also has no bearing on small business owners. And there are many more small business owners than one might think - independent programmers, consultants, Web designers all fall into that category. The minimum wage law only makes sure that unemployment remains high - it makes it illegal to pay market rate for some labor. For example, I want to hire you to stay at home and answer the phone (which I provide) once a week, at random business hours. Should I pay you $1,200/mo for four phone conversations totaling five minutes?
I suppose you will pay FICA taxes out of those, but the wealthy have informed me that doesn't count as taxes.
You don't need to be wealthy to find out for yourself. You only need the W-2 form where all these monies are listed. They do not contribute to your taxable income; but that only means that you don't pay taxes for this part of the income.
I am not a minimum wage worker; but if I were, I'd certainly prefer to live on SSI because I'd have all the time free to earn money elsewhere (and perhaps without reporting it.) Note also that your numbers are per person; if you have a family of dependents then these numbers grow accordingly - not something that happens when you are a sole wage earner in the family; then you only get lower taxes from that salary.
If you are making less then minimum wage owning a business, it's time to take in your shingle.
It's not that bad yet; besides, I don't work just for money - I work because I like to do what I do, and the salary just keeps me alive to do it. But in general, after you invest into your new business you can count on a couple of years of earning zero, considering the investment. Not all investments are recoverable, so counting them toward your assets is not always possible (see Solyndra, what they invested and what was recovered.)
The reason we are amazed that you think plans like obamacare are crazy, radical plans is because they're still pretty damn right wing.
It cannot get any crazier when the government agent comes to you, points a gun at your head, and tells you to buy an unwanted service from a private company. I don't know anyone who even can classify this violation of free will without stepping into the Godwin's territory.
I'm aware of that. Note that this is one of reasons why Russia under Putin started distancing itself from the unlimited "free market," for whatever that term means these days. That lesson was learned well.
As I mentioned, I have no firsthand experience with Denmark. It may well be that they are not socialist enough to hurt the society. I know, though, that socialism tends to spread within the society. The USA in the last few decades is a good illustration of that. Healthcare in the UK would be another illustration of what not to do. If Denmark manages to steer around those problems, more power to them.
So there is no particular reason that a "left" policy cannot be democratic and successful.
The reason had been discovered, and it's not a secret. To build a socialist society you need a socialist man. Without that a handful of hardcore socialists will be toiling day and night to feed the less-than-socialist men. That was one of main reasons of decline of USSR, and the same is the reason for decline of the society in the USA. I don't know about Denmark, but thousands of successful entrepreneurs ran from Sweden in 1970's because Swedish socialism was powered by their money.
In the end it's all about economy. Your society has to produce enough additional product to feed for two years those who do not work. In the USA those two years translate into "forever" because no politician dares to leave the crowds of inner cities hungry. Not only the society has to produce that additional product; it has to produce it easily, under reasonable taxation levels - not under the Pomperipossa taxes. The USA is teetering on the brink already, with taxes being so high and so numerous that a small business owner would do better by boarding it all up and applying for social security. You have to earn money hand over fist if you want to live even at a poverty level. I partly own a small business, and it is not too rare that we cannot pay salaries to ourselves.
There is a national healthcare system available to anyone without payment, good public transit,
USSR had all that and more. That is not enough to keep people happy. Good healthcare is infinitely expensive. The society cannot spend $1M per day to keep an old man marginally alive. However if that old man has a billion dollars in his personal account... why not - he is welcome to it. Most of the money will be spent on labor, so it stays in the economy.
The most important fact here is that people are different, and they are differently productive. Socialism sweeps those differences under the rug; if you work well you will get $x of healthcare; and if you work poorly you still get $x of healthcare. Implement this equality in enough places (apartments, vacations, bonuses and salaries) and you destroy the will to work. I remember when I came to work and my coworker asked me why I did that; well, I had an interesting code to write, honestly - but the coworker said that he is not going to do a thing, and nobody can do anything about it. And he did. A few years later the Soviet economy crashed for good.
Mountains of books are written by very wise men of all centuries about advantages of teaching a man to fish vs. giving him the fish. And nevertheless politicians of all sorts, all over the planet, are screaming from the rooftops that they are distributing fish to all takers. This cannot end well.
Myself, I'm left-libertarian, and I think that your characterization of the TSA being left-wing is very silly.
Not necessarily. TSA itself demonstrates the same dualism. The fact that TSA is tasked with protection of travelers, at expense of the travelers, is liberal. (The right-wing reaction would be to issue a S&W revolver to every traveler and let them fend for themselves.) At the same time the implementation of TSA is Fascist (the state has all rights, the traveler has none - not even the right to walk away.)
You should check that site out.
Already loaded in a tab. Will go there once I post this.
it sounds like you're hardcore right-libertarian
It's not far from the truth:-) But before blaming me for all the ills of the country have a look at the homepage that I set on Slashdot. I grew up in that country, and I know all too well what you get at the other side of the spectrum. (Hint: nothing good.)
Too bad that the GPS was developed for military use; and military does not observe human rights much (except when they don't care.) Besides, what the UN got to do with GPS systems? Do they own them? Of course they don't. The UN owns nothing.
Interfering with other country's satellites is an act of war. A country does not need to launch its own GPS system to use GPS. You only need a cheap receiver, and the receiver does not ask you about your political affiliation.
If these people can leave the stone age, they should be confined to the ground until they smarten the hell up.
Perhaps so, from the POV of a white man (for what it's worth.) However accomplishing this is not possible. First, Muslims comprise a significant part of the population of the planet. Second, Muslims live in all countries, including the West. Third, the West has put on itself the handcuffs of liberalism and democracy. Regardless of the value of those handcuffs, it cannot just go Fascist on those Arabs. And fourth, Arabs sit on top of a lot of oil.
Saudi Arabia can be fairly accurately described as the last country on Earth where slavery is alive and well. All women are de-facto slaves of their male guardians. But there is a large number of foreign workers in the country - and those workers are living there as slaves, for all practical purposes. This is one evil country, if you ask me. There was some noise a year ago about a Sheik who brought his slaves into the USA and tried to abuse them.
It's terrifying that Americans think their center-right government is made up of "crazy radicals"
The reason for that is that many US governments, including the current one, exhibit traits that belong to far left and far right, at the same time. For example, the government can rob Peter to pay Paul; at the same time it will bomb Paul to smithereens and say that it's to save Paul from a worse fate.
Or take Obamacare. On one hand, it gives access to healthcare to people who couldn't afford it. On the other hand, it charges *everyone else* through the nose to pay for the former group, lazily playing with a loaded gun of IRS in the face of the terrified citizenry who'd rather do their own thing in the land of opportunities. It is easy to see why both left and right are up in arms; the government is not just a centrist government that tries to not offend anyone - it is a Heisenberg government that tries to offend everyone by doing everything everywhere.
Don't take this as a critique of just Obama. GWB before him was responsible for TSA (a very liberal, nanny-statist thing) and for Iraq (a very right-wing, "bomb them into stone age" thing.) Clinton before that bombed Yugoslavia (a right-wing, interventionist thing) and was instrumental in splitting Kosovo (a liberal thing, but with a touch of Zbigniew Brzezinski, who is hardly a liberal.)
A well placed broadhead arrow drops the deer on the spot. But the devil is, as usual, in the details. Not every shot is well placed, especially from a bow. I personally don't hunt deer. I have a few on my property; they are perfectly safe here. I hunt only varmints.
What if you miss? What's downrange? (a window and a child?)
Well, that of course wouldn't be a good idea if the deer runs between houses or chews decorative plants by the door. That's way too close. You have to choose your battles wisely.
For suburban deer overpopulation's I'd say spotlights and machetes would be kind of sporting.
Both participants of such struggle have about the same chance to meet their maker. A machete, a slashing weapon, will not be effective against the hide of a deer. A stabbing weapon is needed to generate sufficient pressure and penetrate the hide. Arrows is one possibility; a spear with a sharp head is another. This one is also good. In all cases, you must not wound the animal and let it run away.
A squirrel-long helicopter would be not easy to hit at 150 yards with a rifle even if the helicopter is sitting still on the ground. You'd need the rifle set up for this distance, with a known round, and with correct adjustment of the scope. You'd need a tripod, if not a bench vise. Hunters take varmints like that in 200-300 yards, but not always with one shot, and not without carefully zeroing the scope. Hitting the helicopter in the battery with a single shot from a standing position, with no support, shooting at an angle without a ballistic calculator is not very likely. However a shotgun would be quite effective within a smaller range.
Even if the activists heard a rifle shot and there was a rifle fired, still this doesn't mean that their toy was brought down by the bullet. They specifically mention that their machine failed before they heard the shot. Was the delay proper for the speed of sound, or it was longer? The best way to prove their case is by digging the bullet out of their helicopter.
Scenario 1: Eggs are collected and incubated; game birds are raised until the age of one year. Then they are released. Most of the birds escape; other are killed and collected as food.
Scenario 2: Eggs are collected and incubated; domestic birds are raised until the age of one year. Then they are all killed and sold as food.
Scenario 3: Eggs are not collected and no birds are raised.
Which scenario is more humane? Note that the limit of the scenario #3 is that all birds are extinct.
The point is, life is impossible without death. Scenario 1 creates thousands of bird-years of life that otherwise wouldn't be there. Those who disagree must then take a vow of going childless because every child will suffer and die in the end. Most people seem to accept death as a fair price for some years of life. Why to deny the same to birds?
At the same time, the hunters may have criminal liability too... depending on the specific of where they were shooting.
I'm not a lawyer, but from what I understand the club is not responsible if something (or someone) maliciously trespasses, crosses the marked safety line and enters the target area.
The shooters at any range are required to stop firing if they observe a non-target object at the range. However a helicopter can be easily mistaken for a game bird, especially if those birds were intentionally released from cages just minutes ago.
Shooting the helicopter with a rifle is far more dangerous because the trajectory of the bullet would carry it for miles. If an accident happens then the shooter would be facing criminal charges. However no penalty is likely for shooting dangerously and hitting nothing of importance (like the ground.) A game warden, if he sees you, may tell you not to do this, since it's against the fish and game code, but otherwise shooting firearms at the range is not something the police is terribly upset about.
How difficult would it have been tom make a nicer Windows 7 where you can press the Windows key to go to the metro interface if you want to?
No, that wouldn't work. The only MS-approved way of doing things is by driving a feature down your throat with a sledgehammer.
I thought of many ways how to make Metro apps useful. The best one would be to allow you to run them in windows or in full screen on the desktop. You could even save this preference, so that games start full screen but some irrelevant things can be resized and pinned somewhere in the corner. Also this would create independent instances of Metro, so that you could actually do more on the desktop and run all your software, regardless of the GUI model, side by side. But of course those ideas are too rational to be accepted in Ballmer's world of lunatics.
I know I know, it's really challenging to press the windows key on the keyboard to get to the Metro screen.
Is there any particular reason why no user of stock Windows 8 is allowed to click on the first icon from the left (a.k.a. the Start button) and bring up a little panel with a customized launcher (a.k.a. the Start menu?) Why instead of doing two mouse clicks I must release the mouse, move my hands to the keyboard and type something?
I'm only asking WHY they did that. Specifically, what exact demon from Hell posessed them when they decided to remove a feature that was there since 1995 and hurt no one, as far as I can tell.
Don't bombs usually require some kind of....uh.....explosive?
No. Just observe closely a failure of a truck tire or a diving air cylinder. The only requirement for a bomb is to be able to expand fast enough to be harmful. Air "explosions" will not be supersonic, but they will be plenty for anyone in vicinity.
Instead it seems they found a solution (change to our friend Microsoft) and then went looking for a justification.
I know how this works. I tried to use OpenOffice in a small business. I got nothing but endless complaints of the type "Come here and look what YOUR software did to MY document!1! Fix it right away!" Some of those were legitimate bugs, other were PEBKAC, but in the end I learned that I simply do not want to be blamed for everything that goes wrong with any document anywhere in the company. The amount of support that the users demanded was incredible. Once we switched to MS Office all that disappeared completely.
What a tyrannical government would you be if you dismiss documents without looking!
Besides, if you are proposing a school building with the adjacent territory, what tool would you use to present your project to non-architects? (The D size elevations and sections will not do.) An important feature of the presentation is that the file should be portable, since it will go through many hands before the project is approved. If some of those people cannot open it... sorry, man - other applicants sent me the files that I *could* open:-)
A more important question is, why government employees are allowed to edit presentations made by non-government employees? Presentations are marketing and propaganda materials,
They are also construction plans, proposals, schedules, and millions of other documents that need to be reviewed, and marked up, and forwarded to other government workers for further comments or for making a decision.
Slashdot Mirror
It is very simple to ad some JavaScript to a webpage that checks to see if the page has been modified in anyway or specifically if some important content is still there.
You can add any JS you want, it will not be executed in my browser anyway. If the site refuses to work without JS I either go elsewhere (if this is just a casual browsing) or use a different browser (like Chrome) - but that would be for professional sites, like ti.com, which do not have 3rd party ads.
But even if there are laws against removal of info from pages, they still cannot make it mandatory for you to watch content that you do not want to see. You'd have to do a multiple choice question on the content of the ad to enter the site (with a one-time cookie) - and who would want to jump through so many hoops just to read a blog?
It depends on how many dissimilar computers you have behind the router. In some cases it is highly advisable to have the standard Internet filtered through a proxy in the router, with an option to bypass the proxy for some specific need.
I currently have FF with all adblocking functions enabled (NoScript, Adblock Plus, Ghostery, and a few more.) This is used for everyday browsing. Professional sites are accessed with IE (no adblocking) or with Chrome (light adblocking with Adblock Plus only.)
Avg. SSI for disabled is $1,111, a minimum wage job at $7.25 is about $1250 a month, or $1160 every 4 weeks
This is only true if you are employed full time. This also has no bearing on small business owners. And there are many more small business owners than one might think - independent programmers, consultants, Web designers all fall into that category. The minimum wage law only makes sure that unemployment remains high - it makes it illegal to pay market rate for some labor. For example, I want to hire you to stay at home and answer the phone (which I provide) once a week, at random business hours. Should I pay you $1,200/mo for four phone conversations totaling five minutes?
I suppose you will pay FICA taxes out of those, but the wealthy have informed me that doesn't count as taxes.
You don't need to be wealthy to find out for yourself. You only need the W-2 form where all these monies are listed. They do not contribute to your taxable income; but that only means that you don't pay taxes for this part of the income.
I am not a minimum wage worker; but if I were, I'd certainly prefer to live on SSI because I'd have all the time free to earn money elsewhere (and perhaps without reporting it.) Note also that your numbers are per person; if you have a family of dependents then these numbers grow accordingly - not something that happens when you are a sole wage earner in the family; then you only get lower taxes from that salary.
If you are making less then minimum wage owning a business, it's time to take in your shingle.
It's not that bad yet; besides, I don't work just for money - I work because I like to do what I do, and the salary just keeps me alive to do it. But in general, after you invest into your new business you can count on a couple of years of earning zero, considering the investment. Not all investments are recoverable, so counting them toward your assets is not always possible (see Solyndra, what they invested and what was recovered.)
The reason we are amazed that you think plans like obamacare are crazy, radical plans is because they're still pretty damn right wing.
It cannot get any crazier when the government agent comes to you, points a gun at your head, and tells you to buy an unwanted service from a private company. I don't know anyone who even can classify this violation of free will without stepping into the Godwin's territory.
I'm aware of that. Note that this is one of reasons why Russia under Putin started distancing itself from the unlimited "free market," for whatever that term means these days. That lesson was learned well.
As I mentioned, I have no firsthand experience with Denmark. It may well be that they are not socialist enough to hurt the society. I know, though, that socialism tends to spread within the society. The USA in the last few decades is a good illustration of that. Healthcare in the UK would be another illustration of what not to do. If Denmark manages to steer around those problems, more power to them.
So there is no particular reason that a "left" policy cannot be democratic and successful.
The reason had been discovered, and it's not a secret. To build a socialist society you need a socialist man. Without that a handful of hardcore socialists will be toiling day and night to feed the less-than-socialist men. That was one of main reasons of decline of USSR, and the same is the reason for decline of the society in the USA. I don't know about Denmark, but thousands of successful entrepreneurs ran from Sweden in 1970's because Swedish socialism was powered by their money.
In the end it's all about economy. Your society has to produce enough additional product to feed for two years those who do not work. In the USA those two years translate into "forever" because no politician dares to leave the crowds of inner cities hungry. Not only the society has to produce that additional product; it has to produce it easily, under reasonable taxation levels - not under the Pomperipossa taxes. The USA is teetering on the brink already, with taxes being so high and so numerous that a small business owner would do better by boarding it all up and applying for social security. You have to earn money hand over fist if you want to live even at a poverty level. I partly own a small business, and it is not too rare that we cannot pay salaries to ourselves.
There is a national healthcare system available to anyone without payment, good public transit,
USSR had all that and more. That is not enough to keep people happy. Good healthcare is infinitely expensive. The society cannot spend $1M per day to keep an old man marginally alive. However if that old man has a billion dollars in his personal account... why not - he is welcome to it. Most of the money will be spent on labor, so it stays in the economy.
The most important fact here is that people are different, and they are differently productive. Socialism sweeps those differences under the rug; if you work well you will get $x of healthcare; and if you work poorly you still get $x of healthcare. Implement this equality in enough places (apartments, vacations, bonuses and salaries) and you destroy the will to work. I remember when I came to work and my coworker asked me why I did that; well, I had an interesting code to write, honestly - but the coworker said that he is not going to do a thing, and nobody can do anything about it. And he did. A few years later the Soviet economy crashed for good.
Mountains of books are written by very wise men of all centuries about advantages of teaching a man to fish vs. giving him the fish. And nevertheless politicians of all sorts, all over the planet, are screaming from the rooftops that they are distributing fish to all takers. This cannot end well.
Myself, I'm left-libertarian, and I think that your characterization of the TSA being left-wing is very silly.
Not necessarily. TSA itself demonstrates the same dualism. The fact that TSA is tasked with protection of travelers, at expense of the travelers, is liberal. (The right-wing reaction would be to issue a S&W revolver to every traveler and let them fend for themselves.) At the same time the implementation of TSA is Fascist (the state has all rights, the traveler has none - not even the right to walk away.)
You should check that site out.
Already loaded in a tab. Will go there once I post this.
it sounds like you're hardcore right-libertarian
It's not far from the truth :-) But before blaming me for all the ills of the country have a look at the homepage that I set on Slashdot. I grew up in that country, and I know all too well what you get at the other side of the spectrum. (Hint: nothing good.)
Too bad that the GPS was developed for military use; and military does not observe human rights much (except when they don't care.) Besides, what the UN got to do with GPS systems? Do they own them? Of course they don't. The UN owns nothing.
Interfering with other country's satellites is an act of war. A country does not need to launch its own GPS system to use GPS. You only need a cheap receiver, and the receiver does not ask you about your political affiliation.
If these people can leave the stone age, they should be confined to the ground until they smarten the hell up.
Perhaps so, from the POV of a white man (for what it's worth.) However accomplishing this is not possible. First, Muslims comprise a significant part of the population of the planet. Second, Muslims live in all countries, including the West. Third, the West has put on itself the handcuffs of liberalism and democracy. Regardless of the value of those handcuffs, it cannot just go Fascist on those Arabs. And fourth, Arabs sit on top of a lot of oil.
Saudi Arabia can be fairly accurately described as the last country on Earth where slavery is alive and well. All women are de-facto slaves of their male guardians. But there is a large number of foreign workers in the country - and those workers are living there as slaves, for all practical purposes. This is one evil country, if you ask me. There was some noise a year ago about a Sheik who brought his slaves into the USA and tried to abuse them.
It's terrifying that Americans think their center-right government is made up of "crazy radicals"
The reason for that is that many US governments, including the current one, exhibit traits that belong to far left and far right, at the same time. For example, the government can rob Peter to pay Paul; at the same time it will bomb Paul to smithereens and say that it's to save Paul from a worse fate.
Or take Obamacare. On one hand, it gives access to healthcare to people who couldn't afford it. On the other hand, it charges *everyone else* through the nose to pay for the former group, lazily playing with a loaded gun of IRS in the face of the terrified citizenry who'd rather do their own thing in the land of opportunities. It is easy to see why both left and right are up in arms; the government is not just a centrist government that tries to not offend anyone - it is a Heisenberg government that tries to offend everyone by doing everything everywhere.
Don't take this as a critique of just Obama. GWB before him was responsible for TSA (a very liberal, nanny-statist thing) and for Iraq (a very right-wing, "bomb them into stone age" thing.) Clinton before that bombed Yugoslavia (a right-wing, interventionist thing) and was instrumental in splitting Kosovo (a liberal thing, but with a touch of Zbigniew Brzezinski, who is hardly a liberal.)
A well placed broadhead arrow drops the deer on the spot. But the devil is, as usual, in the details. Not every shot is well placed, especially from a bow. I personally don't hunt deer. I have a few on my property; they are perfectly safe here. I hunt only varmints.
What if you miss? What's downrange? (a window and a child?)
Well, that of course wouldn't be a good idea if the deer runs between houses or chews decorative plants by the door. That's way too close. You have to choose your battles wisely.
For suburban deer overpopulation's I'd say spotlights and machetes would be kind of sporting.
Both participants of such struggle have about the same chance to meet their maker. A machete, a slashing weapon, will not be effective against the hide of a deer. A stabbing weapon is needed to generate sufficient pressure and penetrate the hide. Arrows is one possibility; a spear with a sharp head is another. This one is also good. In all cases, you must not wound the animal and let it run away.
A squirrel-long helicopter would be not easy to hit at 150 yards with a rifle even if the helicopter is sitting still on the ground. You'd need the rifle set up for this distance, with a known round, and with correct adjustment of the scope. You'd need a tripod, if not a bench vise. Hunters take varmints like that in 200-300 yards, but not always with one shot, and not without carefully zeroing the scope. Hitting the helicopter in the battery with a single shot from a standing position, with no support, shooting at an angle without a ballistic calculator is not very likely. However a shotgun would be quite effective within a smaller range.
Even if the activists heard a rifle shot and there was a rifle fired, still this doesn't mean that their toy was brought down by the bullet. They specifically mention that their machine failed before they heard the shot. Was the delay proper for the speed of sound, or it was longer? The best way to prove their case is by digging the bullet out of their helicopter.
Scenario 1: Eggs are collected and incubated; game birds are raised until the age of one year. Then they are released. Most of the birds escape; other are killed and collected as food.
Scenario 2: Eggs are collected and incubated; domestic birds are raised until the age of one year. Then they are all killed and sold as food.
Scenario 3: Eggs are not collected and no birds are raised.
Which scenario is more humane? Note that the limit of the scenario #3 is that all birds are extinct.
The point is, life is impossible without death. Scenario 1 creates thousands of bird-years of life that otherwise wouldn't be there. Those who disagree must then take a vow of going childless because every child will suffer and die in the end. Most people seem to accept death as a fair price for some years of life. Why to deny the same to birds?
At the same time, the hunters may have criminal liability too... depending on the specific of where they were shooting.
I'm not a lawyer, but from what I understand the club is not responsible if something (or someone) maliciously trespasses, crosses the marked safety line and enters the target area.
The shooters at any range are required to stop firing if they observe a non-target object at the range. However a helicopter can be easily mistaken for a game bird, especially if those birds were intentionally released from cages just minutes ago.
Shooting the helicopter with a rifle is far more dangerous because the trajectory of the bullet would carry it for miles. If an accident happens then the shooter would be facing criminal charges. However no penalty is likely for shooting dangerously and hitting nothing of importance (like the ground.) A game warden, if he sees you, may tell you not to do this, since it's against the fish and game code, but otherwise shooting firearms at the range is not something the police is terribly upset about.
About the only safe way to take a deer in the city is going to be very unsporting, spotlighting then tazing etc.
What about a crossbow with broadhead arrows (bolts?)
How difficult would it have been tom make a nicer Windows 7 where you can press the Windows key to go to the metro interface if you want to?
No, that wouldn't work. The only MS-approved way of doing things is by driving a feature down your throat with a sledgehammer.
I thought of many ways how to make Metro apps useful. The best one would be to allow you to run them in windows or in full screen on the desktop. You could even save this preference, so that games start full screen but some irrelevant things can be resized and pinned somewhere in the corner. Also this would create independent instances of Metro, so that you could actually do more on the desktop and run all your software, regardless of the GUI model, side by side. But of course those ideas are too rational to be accepted in Ballmer's world of lunatics.
Surface is not the only tablet running WinRT.
Just give other manufacturers a few months to see their sales figures.
I know I know, it's really challenging to press the windows key on the keyboard to get to the Metro screen.
Is there any particular reason why no user of stock Windows 8 is allowed to click on the first icon from the left (a.k.a. the Start button) and bring up a little panel with a customized launcher (a.k.a. the Start menu?) Why instead of doing two mouse clicks I must release the mouse, move my hands to the keyboard and type something?
I'm only asking WHY they did that. Specifically, what exact demon from Hell posessed them when they decided to remove a feature that was there since 1995 and hurt no one, as far as I can tell.
Except oxygen doesn't burn...
No. But nearly everything else burns in oxygen - including steel.
Don't bombs usually require some kind of....uh.....explosive?
No. Just observe closely a failure of a truck tire or a diving air cylinder. The only requirement for a bomb is to be able to expand fast enough to be harmful. Air "explosions" will not be supersonic, but they will be plenty for anyone in vicinity.
Instead it seems they found a solution (change to our friend Microsoft) and then went looking for a justification.
I know how this works. I tried to use OpenOffice in a small business. I got nothing but endless complaints of the type "Come here and look what YOUR software did to MY document!1! Fix it right away!" Some of those were legitimate bugs, other were PEBKAC, but in the end I learned that I simply do not want to be blamed for everything that goes wrong with any document anywhere in the company. The amount of support that the users demanded was incredible. Once we switched to MS Office all that disappeared completely.
What a tyrannical government would you be if you dismiss documents without looking!
Besides, if you are proposing a school building with the adjacent territory, what tool would you use to present your project to non-architects? (The D size elevations and sections will not do.) An important feature of the presentation is that the file should be portable, since it will go through many hands before the project is approved. If some of those people cannot open it... sorry, man - other applicants sent me the files that I *could* open :-)
A more important question is, why government employees are allowed to edit presentations made by non-government employees? Presentations are marketing and propaganda materials,
They are also construction plans, proposals, schedules, and millions of other documents that need to be reviewed, and marked up, and forwarded to other government workers for further comments or for making a decision.
Who was the idiot that though living forever in 2007 was a good idea?
Probably someone who finds MS Office 2003 functional and stable in the year 2012, ten years after the release.