The great thing about D&D (that's often lost on people) is that it was a social thing. All your friends get together, kinda like college poker nights (except you're NOT trying to drain the sucker next to you). Best campaign I ever had we were ten kids in a room (on a rainy day), working together, hashing things out. The DM was really prepared, and we got completely immersed and the hours flew by like they do when you're really having fun. It was great.
The fact is, it's just damn hard to get a good campaign together, get a lot of people interested. Probably much harder now because D&D has that (false) anti-social stigma these days, and who needs a DM when you got a computer? D&D takes a lot more work than just firing up WoW (or, for that matter, Zork) by yourself in the basement. Even in the day, if your friends weren't into it, role-playing games kinda suck. On the flip side, if your friends are stoked, your DM puts in the prep-time, and you're all keen to cooperate and work with each other, D&D can make some of the best memories you'll ever have. 'cause it's with your friends.
Most people I know who shit on D&D either never played it, or had a lame experience in a lame campaign. That's a shame, but that's life. Anything involving people, from drama club to Boy Scouts to playing football can leave a bad taste in your mouth if the people in it don't care or are uncooperative assholes.
To get rid of the major source of political corruption in the U.S. we need to rewrite the tax codes.
In order for "we" to rewrite the tax codes, better people need to be elected to Congress and state legislatures. Today, to a great extent, that means PACs, because PACs raise the money for campaigns that make the difference between someone wanting to get elected and someone having a real chance of getting elected.
The weak link of democracy is... democracy. First, the voting public needs to know who you are, and second, the voting public needs to get off their asses and vote. Seriously. There's a mid-term election coming up... pay attention to the turn-out.
"We" will continue to elect puppets and pawns, owned by and obligated to the "secret" donors to the PACs (and who will continue to twist the tax code for their benefit), until "we" start coming out in sufficient numbers and elect other people, and thus embarrass all the "secret" donors who sent money to the PACs but got no return on their "investment".
The machines. Fine black slabs (NeXTstations), cubes with giant NeXT Dimension monitors, and matching black 400dpi laser printers... Sun made some fine-looking Sparc pizza boxes back in the day with cute purple feet, but the NeXTs were a joy to use for anything from research to productivity. I recall Mathematica, Webster's Dictionary, and WriteNow were bundled for free!
As to OS X, I appreciate the underlying NeXTStep framework, which is particularly evident from Xcode. But the display is something new (not Display Postscript), and ever since version 1 "cheetah" I have wondered why the performance seemed so poor, when NeXTStep ran just fine on Motorola 68030's and 68040's and 16 MBytes RAM.
I mean, OS X performs fine now, but it's running on Intel hardware that's not even in the same sport as what NeXTStep was running on in the early 90's. In view of that, I would expect something based on NeXTStep to be absolutely stunning quick on modern Mac Intel hardware, but it's just ok.
X11 was available, both commercial and free (e.g. CoXist), as an app that ran on NeXT's Display Postscript. I miss NeXT computers, looked good, performed well, easy to service, easy to program, good networking, good documentation, sported floppies that could write DOS disks which came in handy so many many times in those days before thumb drives. And I remember Display Postscript having some X-like network capability (but I didn't use it much). Besides, both the WWW and Doom, and who knows what else, started life on a NeXT. I wish them well, wherever they be.
Am I old?
Not at all, though there are some younger people around.
Simple: It is a "Datasheet" covering an "archival grade medium". If you do not know that, you have absolutely no business working on any kind of "mission critical" storage, as you are simply incompetent with regard to that subject.
Easy, there, big fella. Posting a link to a datasheet would have sufficed. Ain't right to call a man incompetent for asking a question. Truly, an incompetent is one who don't never ask the question assuming he already knows. Credit is due for seeking to learn something.
There are only two options for reliable data archiving: 1. Spinning disks with redundancy and regular checks 2. Archival grade tape. There used to be MOD as well, but as nobody cared enough to buy it, development stalled and then died.
Any experience with M-discs as archival media? Newer cd and dvd burners are compatible with them, but do they deliver?
It is disingenuous to count XP's support period from its first release date...Support for original XP (without a Service Pack) ended in 2005- only 4 years supported. The last Service Pack, SP3, was released in 2008- giving it a respectable 6 years supported.
That sounds about right. I refused to upgrade from Windows 2000 until XP had made it past SP1, because XP had so many problems on release. These days, we think of patches to fix security issues. But with XP, most patches just fixed things that were plain broken. The years before SP2, and probably SP3, really shouldn't count in XP's lifespan.
...and then do absolutely nothing to stop the rampant pirating of that copy...
Stop it? They'd promote it!...after hacking it to send keystrokes and user-data to their own intelligence servers. Windows CN, coming to a torrent near you.
Lawyer speak. They are trying to make it difficult for investigators to find incriminating or "smoking gun" evidence through a word-search on their electronic documents (such as when they are forced to hand them over on discovery or under subpoena, or else leaked by a whistleblower or hacker).
The article suggests there's a lot of room for improvement, but the first problem is that our Congress can't be bothered to do the (admittedly) hard, tedious work of improving it. Seems like all they care about lately is grand-standing to attract more money to buy more TV ads to get re-elected... to do the same thing over again.
Howabout we actually show up to the polls in decent numbers this year and vote them all out. It don't matter who they are or who the opponent is, even if it's a chimpanzee, we all pull the other switch and send the incumbent home to do whatever he's gonna do. Let the star-chamber campaign gods of both parties scratch their heads why the pricey attack ads didn't work. Then do it again two years later, and again after that, until we get a Congress that actually takes the people's business seriously (the "people", you know, being all of us).
Yeah, I know. But don't they say something about democracies getting exactly the government they deserve?
Bring back the GIANT MAPS. I'm jonesin' to play in the giant bathroom again.
Yes! These maps were great! I used to hide out in a drain in the sink (there was a redeemer hidden in there) or take a sniper position on top a piece of crown molding. 2 inches high in a kitchen with a super shock rifle? and the TV actually worked!
This. It's ancient, but there's something about UT 99 and it's great maps and mods that's un-matched for quick, dirty, mad crazy carnage.
I would love nothing more than re-creating the feel of that game with a few modern updates (maybe modern, smoother graphics for better eye-candy, destructible map elements (leave a crater where a redeemer went off, drop a wall on an enemy), rockets that actually fly fast like real rockets, blast waves, simulated vertigo/shock on impact, more useable gadgets in maps). It'd also be great to skin yourself as anything you want. Deathmatch with Bart Simpson, Teletubbies, Ronald MacDonald comin' at ya with a flak cannon. Game so good you quit your job and leave your wife. Mayhem!
Microsoft "technology" is actually pretty good. Their products largely do exactly what they promise, and the company hires and continues to hire out of the best and brightest tech talent pool.
It's their marketing that causes so much trouble, anger and teeth-gnashing. Their marketing people are infamously out of touch, habitually rely on (dubious) focus groups, but they're in charge and they consistently end up compromising their products with gimmicks and irritants intended to attract revenue for not-much-new. Most all of which fall flat, as consumers refuse the bait and stick with old releases that get the job done (e.g., Office 2003).
I, for one, would happily pay for a new release of Windows and Office (and I know plenty of businesses that would do the same) if they simply ran and looked better; not different, better. Faster, more reliable, easier deployment, bugs squashed, new capabilities reflecting changes in technology... perhaps some new "killer feature". Instead, they deliver "different": no new capabilities, but requires new training, and new pricing schemes. Who needs that?
Our excuse? Well... well... I DON'T WANNA DO WITHOUT MY SUV!!!
Is that what all the fuss is about? Best I know, the "climate-changer's" agenda is simply stuff we ought to be doing anyway, like reducing emissions and our dependence on fossil fuels. You know, things that also help with smog, health, war, pollution/land-wasting/strip-mining, and other things we all know are bad already. Climate change is just one more reason, right?
The coal and oil barons have a problem, sure, 'cause taxes and regulations for this or that reason eat into their easy money. But your SUV? The only thing taking your SUV away is the global price of oil. Recall, fuel was cheap until the second-half of Bush-II, and Hummers roamed the land. Then gas went North of $5 (some trouble in the Middle-East if I recall), and Hummer went extinct. I've never understood how people can get into such a hissy-fit over a proposed 5-cent gas tax to, I don't know, fill pot-holes or fix bridges or something, but when foreign oil-producing countries send fuel to $5/gallon Americans meekly make do.
The Ribbon is an eye-candy solution to a problem that only existed in focus groups. Microsoft may have been legitimately worried that OpenOffice and others were encroaching on its turf, productivity apps increasingly looking the same, and wanted something to look new and different. And that's fine, but they made it mandatory, and also yanked the menus and other, customizable interfaces people had gotten used to for getting their work done.
Seriously, a very important feature of Microsoft products was the ability to customize them to a particular job or work environment. That's one way businesses got locked into Microsoft.
The ribbon shot that in the foot at the expense of precious screen space. Shills and trolls just say "learn something new". Thousands of offices still using Office 2003 respond "we're real productive with what we've got, and don't have down-time to gamble on something new." Microsoft has it backward. You don't fish for one or two consumers who want a pretty ribbon to buy one license... you cater to what businesses need, and sell site-licenses at tens, hundreds, thousands of seats at a time. Then, the consumer will buy a copy because that's what he or she trained on at work.
But that's Office. Sticking the ribbon into the File/Windows Explorer is just weird, like an attempt to brand everything in some effort to evangelize one-interface-to-rule-them-all, as if putting it everywhere is going to make people like it. I'm hoping Microsoft is gonna stop forcing it's homegrown ideas down people's throats, and get back to making software people actually want to use to get work done. Clue: busy people don't have time to participate in focus groups.
Some of the changes are actually pretty good. The hover-over title bar on Metro Apps seems like a no-brainer. The hover-over, universal task bar for easy app switching is also a really good idea. Right-clicking works now on the Start Screen... where have you been?
I mean, it's real easy to see these things in hindsight, but you gotta wonder whether anyone in Microsoft was testing this out on desktops with large screens, and didn't reflexively hit the right-button and expect something to appear. I mean, the developers didn't create Metro on small-screen touchpads, did they? Someone over there must have noticed how awkward and strange it is to work modern apps on a workstation, right?
Don't know whether to give Microsoft credit or slap them. If these features had been in the original Windows 8, there would have been a lot less hate (read: a lot more adoption) of the operating system on the desktop, and maybe an easier path for people to jump off XP. It's the arrogance, the suck-it-up, get-used-to-it, and the desktop-is-history BS that turned me off so hard, with a blatant disregard for just plain stupid things, like switching out of the desktop to some lame Metro previewer each time a user opens a PDF file (with no visible way of getting back).
These changes, plus the promised Start menu in an upcoming release, might just make Windows 8 usable in the workplace like 7 is. In view of that, I hope Microsoft has turned a corner, 'cause like it or not most people (me included) depend on Windows to make a living. Hopefully, they understand that again, and will keep throwing bones out to us desktop users (maybe permit more desktop customization features? fix those ugly window decorations? drop shadows?). But they wasted almost 2 years in the doghouse alienating their biggest customer base, and encouraging people not to migrate off XP and older systems. Hope their learning their lesson.
I liked gadgets, too. Minor things like a desktop clock, calendar, weather, scrachpad, that kind of thing helps your workflow and save you the time and risk of looking for some random shareware solution. I was never too clear on any security problems with gadgets, thought they were sandboxed. I figured they got dropped because Microsoft just decided the desktop was history and all is Metro. Same reason I figured this or that UI bug in 7 would never get fixed.
Just trying to be helpful, there's a site winaero.com that has a bunch of tweak apps for Windows, and one of them called Tiny Window Borders does exactly what you want.
That's the amazing thing about Windows... you think they screwed something up? Chances are, a google search will show a lot of people agree with you, and one or two (or in the case of the Start menu, a whole lot of people) have done the work to develop a fix.
Now, me personally, I think the flat look is horrible. Seven's Aero Glass transparency wasn't all that great, but drop-shadows, rounded edges, and get-out-of-my-way color schemes actually make a difference in my productivity. To each his own, and if you're cool with flat candy-bright, cheers to you. But it sucks that Microsoft removed a means to look like 7 if you wanted to. Thanks to 8, I'm forced to go third-party-themes, taking my chances with patching system files and all.
But honestly, what do you think would happen if the US military were suddenly defunded?
A lot of bullshit pork contracts would have their fat trimmed, we'd murder less people for profit, or both.
A very large fraction of the population, particularly scientists and engineers, would be permanently out of work. Oh, and science/engineering education, too, never to return as old people die off and young people spend time on things more likely to get them a paycheck, like auditioning on American Idol. Like it or not, the free market is just a little too risk averse, too interested in next quarter's profits, to invest in the long-term, high ambition projects that ultimately keep the STEM community alive.
Read: Laid off. No work. Will design radar-evading SCRAMjets for food.
Maybe he'll get a job in China. Nobody cuttin' the military over there.
Public policy? Twaddle! Smart people with money. That's the cure for what ails society!
Yeah, well, so long as the public goes into a 4-Minute Hate every time some pundit says "wasteful spending", people with money (and they don't need to be smart) will be the only ones who pick up the ball.
Five words guaranteed to put a damper on anything: "Who's gonna PAY for it?"
Slashdot Mirror
The great thing about D&D (that's often lost on people) is that it was a social thing. All your friends get together, kinda like college poker nights (except you're NOT trying to drain the sucker next to you). Best campaign I ever had we were ten kids in a room (on a rainy day), working together, hashing things out. The DM was really prepared, and we got completely immersed and the hours flew by like they do when you're really having fun. It was great.
The fact is, it's just damn hard to get a good campaign together, get a lot of people interested. Probably much harder now because D&D has that (false) anti-social stigma these days, and who needs a DM when you got a computer? D&D takes a lot more work than just firing up WoW (or, for that matter, Zork) by yourself in the basement. Even in the day, if your friends weren't into it, role-playing games kinda suck. On the flip side, if your friends are stoked, your DM puts in the prep-time, and you're all keen to cooperate and work with each other, D&D can make some of the best memories you'll ever have. 'cause it's with your friends.
Most people I know who shit on D&D either never played it, or had a lame experience in a lame campaign. That's a shame, but that's life. Anything involving people, from drama club to Boy Scouts to playing football can leave a bad taste in your mouth if the people in it don't care or are uncooperative assholes.
To get rid of the major source of political corruption in the U.S. we need to rewrite the tax codes.
In order for "we" to rewrite the tax codes, better people need to be elected to Congress and state legislatures. Today, to a great extent, that means PACs, because PACs raise the money for campaigns that make the difference between someone wanting to get elected and someone having a real chance of getting elected.
The weak link of democracy is... democracy. First, the voting public needs to know who you are, and second, the voting public needs to get off their asses and vote. Seriously. There's a mid-term election coming up... pay attention to the turn-out.
"We" will continue to elect puppets and pawns, owned by and obligated to the "secret" donors to the PACs (and who will continue to twist the tax code for their benefit), until "we" start coming out in sufficient numbers and elect other people, and thus embarrass all the "secret" donors who sent money to the PACs but got no return on their "investment".
The machines or the OS?
The machines. Fine black slabs (NeXTstations), cubes with giant NeXT Dimension monitors, and matching black 400dpi laser printers... Sun made some fine-looking Sparc pizza boxes back in the day with cute purple feet, but the NeXTs were a joy to use for anything from research to productivity. I recall Mathematica, Webster's Dictionary, and WriteNow were bundled for free!
As to OS X, I appreciate the underlying NeXTStep framework, which is particularly evident from Xcode. But the display is something new (not Display Postscript), and ever since version 1 "cheetah" I have wondered why the performance seemed so poor, when NeXTStep ran just fine on Motorola 68030's and 68040's and 16 MBytes RAM.
I mean, OS X performs fine now, but it's running on Intel hardware that's not even in the same sport as what NeXTStep was running on in the early 90's. In view of that, I would expect something based on NeXTStep to be absolutely stunning quick on modern Mac Intel hardware, but it's just ok.
NeXT machines used Display Postscript not X.
X11 was available, both commercial and free (e.g. CoXist), as an app that ran on NeXT's Display Postscript. I miss NeXT computers, looked good, performed well, easy to service, easy to program, good networking, good documentation, sported floppies that could write DOS disks which came in handy so many many times in those days before thumb drives. And I remember Display Postscript having some X-like network capability (but I didn't use it much). Besides, both the WWW and Doom, and who knows what else, started life on a NeXT. I wish them well, wherever they be.
Am I old?
Not at all, though there are some younger people around.
True.
Simple: It is a "Datasheet" covering an "archival grade medium". If you do not know that, you have absolutely no business working on any kind of "mission critical" storage, as you are simply incompetent with regard to that subject.
Easy, there, big fella. Posting a link to a datasheet would have sufficed. Ain't right to call a man incompetent for asking a question. Truly, an incompetent is one who don't never ask the question assuming he already knows. Credit is due for seeking to learn something.
There are only two options for reliable data archiving: 1. Spinning disks with redundancy and regular checks 2. Archival grade tape. There used to be MOD as well, but as nobody cared enough to buy it, development stalled and then died.
Any experience with M-discs as archival media? Newer cd and dvd burners are compatible with them, but do they deliver?
Are dark, sparkling Foldger's Crystals rich enough to keep these patients alive and well?
Spokesman: How do you feel?
Patient #1: Fine, thank you.
Spokesman: Did you know that we've replaced all of your blood with Foldger's Crystals?
Patient #1: An instant?
Spokesman: That's right.
Patient #1: I can't believe it. I feel great. I'm full of Foldger's Crystals, really?
Spokesman: Yes, and so are all the other patients in this intensive care unit. How do you all feel?
[ The other patients show reactions of approval ]
It is disingenuous to count XP's support period from its first release date...Support for original XP (without a Service Pack) ended in 2005- only 4 years supported. The last Service Pack, SP3, was released in 2008- giving it a respectable 6 years supported.
That sounds about right. I refused to upgrade from Windows 2000 until XP had made it past SP1, because XP had so many problems on release. These days, we think of patches to fix security issues. But with XP, most patches just fixed things that were plain broken. The years before SP2, and probably SP3, really shouldn't count in XP's lifespan.
...and then do absolutely nothing to stop the rampant pirating of that copy...
Stop it? They'd promote it! ...after hacking it to send keystrokes and user-data to their own intelligence servers.
Windows CN, coming to a torrent near you.
Lawyer speak. They are trying to make it difficult for investigators to find incriminating or "smoking gun" evidence through a word-search on their electronic documents (such as when they are forced to hand them over on discovery or under subpoena, or else leaked by a whistleblower or hacker).
This. Wise words and true. I have no mod points left :\
Still love UT99. So much so that when it wouldn't play on my new Mac, I bought Parallels, Windows XP and the Windows version of UT.
That's dedication, my friend. It runs fine with Windows 7, too, if you ever find yourself forced out of XP.
The article suggests there's a lot of room for improvement, but the first problem is that our Congress can't be bothered to do the (admittedly) hard, tedious work of improving it. Seems like all they care about lately is grand-standing to attract more money to buy more TV ads to get re-elected... to do the same thing over again.
Howabout we actually show up to the polls in decent numbers this year and vote them all out. It don't matter who they are or who the opponent is, even if it's a chimpanzee, we all pull the other switch and send the incumbent home to do whatever he's gonna do. Let the star-chamber campaign gods of both parties scratch their heads why the pricey attack ads didn't work. Then do it again two years later, and again after that, until we get a Congress that actually takes the people's business seriously (the "people", you know, being all of us).
Yeah, I know. But don't they say something about democracies getting exactly the government they deserve?
Yes. Yes. and Yes.
Bring back the GIANT MAPS. I'm jonesin' to play in the giant bathroom again.
Yes! These maps were great! I used to hide out in a drain in the sink (there was a redeemer hidden in there) or take a sniper position on top a piece of crown molding. 2 inches high in a kitchen with a super shock rifle? and the TV actually worked!
This. It's ancient, but there's something about UT 99 and it's great maps and mods that's un-matched for quick, dirty, mad crazy carnage.
I would love nothing more than re-creating the feel of that game with a few modern updates (maybe modern, smoother graphics for better eye-candy, destructible map elements (leave a crater where a redeemer went off, drop a wall on an enemy), rockets that actually fly fast like real rockets, blast waves, simulated vertigo/shock on impact, more useable gadgets in maps). It'd also be great to skin yourself as anything you want. Deathmatch with Bart Simpson, Teletubbies, Ronald MacDonald comin' at ya with a flak cannon. Game so good you quit your job and leave your wife. Mayhem!
Microsoft "technology" is actually pretty good. Their products largely do exactly what they promise, and the company hires and continues to hire out of the best and brightest tech talent pool.
It's their marketing that causes so much trouble, anger and teeth-gnashing. Their marketing people are infamously out of touch, habitually rely on (dubious) focus groups, but they're in charge and they consistently end up compromising their products with gimmicks and irritants intended to attract revenue for not-much-new. Most all of which fall flat, as consumers refuse the bait and stick with old releases that get the job done (e.g., Office 2003).
I, for one, would happily pay for a new release of Windows and Office (and I know plenty of businesses that would do the same) if they simply ran and looked better; not different, better. Faster, more reliable, easier deployment, bugs squashed, new capabilities reflecting changes in technology... perhaps some new "killer feature". Instead, they deliver "different": no new capabilities, but requires new training, and new pricing schemes. Who needs that?
Our excuse?
Well... well... I DON'T WANNA DO WITHOUT MY SUV!!!
Is that what all the fuss is about? Best I know, the "climate-changer's" agenda is simply stuff we ought to be doing anyway, like reducing emissions and our dependence on fossil fuels. You know, things that also help with smog, health, war, pollution/land-wasting/strip-mining, and other things we all know are bad already. Climate change is just one more reason, right?
The coal and oil barons have a problem, sure, 'cause taxes and regulations for this or that reason eat into their easy money. But your SUV? The only thing taking your SUV away is the global price of oil. Recall, fuel was cheap until the second-half of Bush-II, and Hummers roamed the land. Then gas went North of $5 (some trouble in the Middle-East if I recall), and Hummer went extinct. I've never understood how people can get into such a hissy-fit over a proposed 5-cent gas tax to, I don't know, fill pot-holes or fix bridges or something, but when foreign oil-producing countries send fuel to $5/gallon Americans meekly make do.
THIS. Roger Ailes may have an agenda at Fox News, but the parent company is only in it for the money.
THIS!
The Ribbon is an eye-candy solution to a problem that only existed in focus groups. Microsoft may have been legitimately worried that OpenOffice and others were encroaching on its turf, productivity apps increasingly looking the same, and wanted something to look new and different. And that's fine, but they made it mandatory, and also yanked the menus and other, customizable interfaces people had gotten used to for getting their work done.
Seriously, a very important feature of Microsoft products was the ability to customize them to a particular job or work environment. That's one way businesses got locked into Microsoft.
The ribbon shot that in the foot at the expense of precious screen space. Shills and trolls just say "learn something new". Thousands of offices still using Office 2003 respond "we're real productive with what we've got, and don't have down-time to gamble on something new." Microsoft has it backward. You don't fish for one or two consumers who want a pretty ribbon to buy one license... you cater to what businesses need, and sell site-licenses at tens, hundreds, thousands of seats at a time. Then, the consumer will buy a copy because that's what he or she trained on at work.
But that's Office. Sticking the ribbon into the File/Windows Explorer is just weird, like an attempt to brand everything in some effort to evangelize one-interface-to-rule-them-all, as if putting it everywhere is going to make people like it. I'm hoping Microsoft is gonna stop forcing it's homegrown ideas down people's throats, and get back to making software people actually want to use to get work done. Clue: busy people don't have time to participate in focus groups.
Some of the changes are actually pretty good. The hover-over title bar on Metro Apps seems like a no-brainer. The hover-over, universal task bar for easy app switching is also a really good idea. Right-clicking works now on the Start Screen... where have you been?
I mean, it's real easy to see these things in hindsight, but you gotta wonder whether anyone in Microsoft was testing this out on desktops with large screens, and didn't reflexively hit the right-button and expect something to appear. I mean, the developers didn't create Metro on small-screen touchpads, did they? Someone over there must have noticed how awkward and strange it is to work modern apps on a workstation, right?
Don't know whether to give Microsoft credit or slap them. If these features had been in the original Windows 8, there would have been a lot less hate (read: a lot more adoption) of the operating system on the desktop, and maybe an easier path for people to jump off XP. It's the arrogance, the suck-it-up, get-used-to-it, and the desktop-is-history BS that turned me off so hard, with a blatant disregard for just plain stupid things, like switching out of the desktop to some lame Metro previewer each time a user opens a PDF file (with no visible way of getting back).
These changes, plus the promised Start menu in an upcoming release, might just make Windows 8 usable in the workplace like 7 is. In view of that, I hope Microsoft has turned a corner, 'cause like it or not most people (me included) depend on Windows to make a living. Hopefully, they understand that again, and will keep throwing bones out to us desktop users (maybe permit more desktop customization features? fix those ugly window decorations? drop shadows?). But they wasted almost 2 years in the doghouse alienating their biggest customer base, and encouraging people not to migrate off XP and older systems. Hope their learning their lesson.
I liked gadgets, too. Minor things like a desktop clock, calendar, weather, scrachpad, that kind of thing helps your workflow and save you the time and risk of looking for some random shareware solution. I was never too clear on any security problems with gadgets, thought they were sandboxed. I figured they got dropped because Microsoft just decided the desktop was history and all is Metro. Same reason I figured this or that UI bug in 7 would never get fixed.
There are unofficial ways to get them back on Windows 8, and so far it's worked reliably for me.
Just trying to be helpful, there's a site winaero.com that has a bunch of tweak apps for Windows, and one of them called Tiny Window Borders does exactly what you want.
That's the amazing thing about Windows... you think they screwed something up? Chances are, a google search will show a lot of people agree with you, and one or two (or in the case of the Start menu, a whole lot of people) have done the work to develop a fix.
Now, me personally, I think the flat look is horrible. Seven's Aero Glass transparency wasn't all that great, but drop-shadows, rounded edges, and get-out-of-my-way color schemes actually make a difference in my productivity. To each his own, and if you're cool with flat candy-bright, cheers to you. But it sucks that Microsoft removed a means to look like 7 if you wanted to. Thanks to 8, I'm forced to go third-party-themes, taking my chances with patching system files and all.
But honestly, what do you think would happen if the US military were suddenly defunded?
A lot of bullshit pork contracts would have their fat trimmed, we'd murder less people for profit, or both.
A very large fraction of the population, particularly scientists and engineers, would be permanently out of work. Oh, and science/engineering education, too, never to return as old people die off and young people spend time on things more likely to get them a paycheck, like auditioning on American Idol. Like it or not, the free market is just a little too risk averse, too interested in next quarter's profits, to invest in the long-term, high ambition projects that ultimately keep the STEM community alive.
Read: Laid off. No work. Will design radar-evading SCRAMjets for food.
Maybe he'll get a job in China. Nobody cuttin' the military over there.
Public policy? Twaddle! Smart people with money. That's the cure for what ails society!
Yeah, well, so long as the public goes into a 4-Minute Hate every time some pundit says "wasteful spending", people with money (and they don't need to be smart) will be the only ones who pick up the ball.
Five words guaranteed to put a damper on anything: "Who's gonna PAY for it?"