I help students with their computers at work, and I'm shocked at the amount of bloatware I see on the Windows laptops they bring me.
Microsoft needs to crack down on its OEM contracts and help give people an experience closer to what you get with OS X. Every Windows laptop should act the same when you turn it on for the first time.
Oh, I know it was the writers and especially Roddenberry's dedication to a utopian future that put Star Trek on such scientific footing, but Spock was consistently the public face of it - and Nimoy was pivotal in charting the development of Spock throughout the series. He so quickly became the breakout star of the series, and it's hard to picture another actor portraying Spock effectively (other than Mark Lenard, who would have made a suitable sub for Nimoy if he'd left the series as he threatened.)
The writers were definitely the start of Star Trek's scientific agenda, but Nimoy's portrayal of Spock is what made it "click" for the public.
Seriously - Leonard Nimoy's Mr. Spock probably inspired more people to enter science, engineering, and intellectualism in general than any other figure in pop culture. He turned anti-intellectualism on its ear by making being a "nerd" not just cool, but even sexy.
Look at any major technology or research company making the world a better place, and I guarantee it was built by people who grew up aspiring to be more like Spock.
Well, there was a lot of wrong keystrokes in just the right order leading up to this, but it did end in the erroneous pressing of "enter" - without which the prior keystrokes of DELETE * FROM EVIDENCE wouldn't have mattered.
But it was definitely the single, final, erroneous keystroke that is to blame and therefore definitely an accident.
I think it's more common among liberals (which makes me ashamed to call myself a liberal at times) but libertarians have a big problem with vaccines too for different reasons - and Silicon Valley is the kind of place to which libertarians are naturally drawn.
Since it's California and it's filled with both populations, you just have a double-whammy.:\
Silicon Valley is unexpectedly bad for vaccines - it's the perfect mix of anti-science liberals and anti-government libertarians. One group thinks vaccines are poison, the other thinks they're a conspiracy.
In best Slashdot style, I did some research *after* posting this, and found out that they're sticking with Trident, so at least that bit of competition will be kept.
Isn't Microsoft announcing a new web browser intended to replace Internet Explorer today? Maybe it'll be open source. Maybe it'll even be based on Webkit.
I don't know how much licensed code is in IE that Microsoft would have to untangle the rights to before open-sourcing it, and given the fact that we've mostly figured out how to work around IE's problems at this point, I'm not sure if it'd be worth the effort to do so.
It'd probably be best to just retire IE, let developers continue struggling through the known-workarounds they've been using until its market-share vanishes, and look forward instead of back. The time spent trying to figure out IE's source could be better spent developing/using a better platform.
Regardless, I think every web browser should be open source, since they work on (theoretically) open standards, run cross platform, and are the defacto presentation layer for an increasing number of applications. Developers need to be able to understand the internals of the browser to assure the best quality of their own work. Really hoping that's what happens with whatever MS announces today with Spartan. (I just don't think IE is worth the effort to open source at this point)
I dunno, we're not a really large town, and we have an industrial electronics distributor who also sells to the public out of their warehouse. It's quite possible we're just lucky - we have a fair number of local manufacturers who they work with, so I imagine that's what keeps them in the area.
Us geeks despise the idea of a walled garden source for software installs, but at least it nominally protects users against this kind of stuff.
Yes - things sneak through from time to time, but it's still orders of magnitude safer than Joe User hoping to find a program online to perform the same task that won't bring his web browsers grinding to a halt with fifteen toolbars.
"Help. My computer is slow." "You need to clean up the malware." "Okay, I did a Google for malware cleaner. That only made it worse." "Oh, you have to install Malwarebytes. That software's a fake." "Okay, I don't know how I was supposed to know it was fake, but now I've installed Malwarebytes. Things got worse." "That's because the first search result in Google is actually an ad for somebody else distributing Malwarebytes with its own malware. You have to go to this page instead." "Okay, I don't know I was supposed to know that too, but now I've installed it. Why is it still not working?" "Because the malware on your computer redirects attempts to remove the malware on your computer." "Fuck this. I'm buying a tablet."
(one month later)
"How do I delete all this crap on my tablet?" "You can't unless you root it. Here's a guide that a five year old child could follow, with only a 10% chance of bricking your unit." "Then fetch me a fucking five year old child because I'm paralyzed by learned helplessness by this point."
I think we forget how overwhelming and stacked against the user the entire process is.
The real irony is that the article he's so upset about painted him as an emotionally unstable and clueless twit with a propensity for going on tirades and rants.
Presuming that this proof reached via impressively tortured logic does have merit: Does it mean that it is also impossible to build a purely evil robot that would always kill maliciously?
I feel bad for Howard Warshaw (the designer of E.T.). He was given all of five weeks by Atari to design and program the game, from concept to final product. I imagine he realized at some point that the game was awful, but had no choice but to sign off on it because there was no way to rework it in that kind of time frame.
The complete opposite of Blizzard and Valve, who've shown a willingness to delay or outright cancel games that aren't up to snuff rather than release low quality products. (At least Blizzard used to be like that.)
I agree with not going into "panic mode", but we don't know who did this yet. It might be a person who could have been dealt with by improved public mental health, or it may have been a foreign actor engaging in terrorism against the Canadian state.
We can't call what it is until we have facts. And we have precious few right now. Which is all the more reason not to panic.
Is there any actual proof that OS decay is still a thing? I'm running Windows 8.1 that was upgraded from a Windows 7 install that was put on years ago, and I've seen zero performance issues.
Shouldn't the person asking this question have actually used Windows 8 before asking if Windows 10 will "finally" fix a problem that may or may not even exist?
This is a loss for all the flagmakers who were gearing up to produce whatever the new UK flag would be. How often do you get the chance to sell a new flag to everybody in a nation?
How would this impact MacBooks, iMacs, etc? You can't really buy OS X separately, and upgrades have become free so I don't even know that there's anything to refund.
I'm pretty sure Apple stores have replacement stock on hand. Anytime I've had to get my phone replaced under AppleCare+, I've been able to make my appointment, walk in, and walk out with a (presumably refurbed) new phone from a box in the back. Heck, if the replacement didn't work in the store, they had even more replacements ready to go.
This is probably the result of Apple being able to afford to keep that kind of inventory on hand in their stores. Plus, Apple doesn't exactly have a lot of models of phones. A carrier like T-Mobile or Verizon would have to keep a frankly excessive number of phones on hand for any immediate warranty replacements. (How many Samsung phones are on the market at any given time?)
On the gripping hand, it's not like smartphones are exactly *large* and would take up a lot of space in the backroom so...
I think it'd be a nice customer service perk (and part of the reason I stick with Apple) but not something that needs to be legislated. Do carriers not keep cheap loaners in stock that you can borrow (with a credit card deposit) until your actual replacement shows up?
There's not enough fingers in the world to count all the awful apps that violate most of Apple's so-called "standards."
My favorite are the apps that have a string of words from other popular apps' names in them, just to muck up the search results. And they make sure to periodically change the icon to look like another app as well.
Is it a common thing for employees to stick around when they're not getting paid? I've read a lot of stories of software development houses where the paychecks dried up, but people stayed on holding out hope for a paycheck.
How often do companies recover from a situation where they're unable to pay salaries for a period of time?
Slashdot Mirror
Last time I checked, they are the same: filled with bloatware. :D
Could they at least try to fill them all with the same bloatware?
I help students with their computers at work, and I'm shocked at the amount of bloatware I see on the Windows laptops they bring me.
Microsoft needs to crack down on its OEM contracts and help give people an experience closer to what you get with OS X. Every Windows laptop should act the same when you turn it on for the first time.
Oh, I know it was the writers and especially Roddenberry's dedication to a utopian future that put Star Trek on such scientific footing, but Spock was consistently the public face of it - and Nimoy was pivotal in charting the development of Spock throughout the series. He so quickly became the breakout star of the series, and it's hard to picture another actor portraying Spock effectively (other than Mark Lenard, who would have made a suitable sub for Nimoy if he'd left the series as he threatened.)
The writers were definitely the start of Star Trek's scientific agenda, but Nimoy's portrayal of Spock is what made it "click" for the public.
Seriously - Leonard Nimoy's Mr. Spock probably inspired more people to enter science, engineering, and intellectualism in general than any other figure in pop culture. He turned anti-intellectualism on its ear by making being a "nerd" not just cool, but even sexy.
Look at any major technology or research company making the world a better place, and I guarantee it was built by people who grew up aspiring to be more like Spock.
Well, there was a lot of wrong keystrokes in just the right order leading up to this, but it did end in the erroneous pressing of "enter" - without which the prior keystrokes of DELETE * FROM EVIDENCE wouldn't have mattered.
But it was definitely the single, final, erroneous keystroke that is to blame and therefore definitely an accident.
I think it's more common among liberals (which makes me ashamed to call myself a liberal at times) but libertarians have a big problem with vaccines too for different reasons - and Silicon Valley is the kind of place to which libertarians are naturally drawn.
Since it's California and it's filled with both populations, you just have a double-whammy. :\
Silicon Valley is unexpectedly bad for vaccines - it's the perfect mix of anti-science liberals and anti-government libertarians. One group thinks vaccines are poison, the other thinks they're a conspiracy.
In best Slashdot style, I did some research *after* posting this, and found out that they're sticking with Trident, so at least that bit of competition will be kept.
Isn't Microsoft announcing a new web browser intended to replace Internet Explorer today? Maybe it'll be open source. Maybe it'll even be based on Webkit.
I don't know how much licensed code is in IE that Microsoft would have to untangle the rights to before open-sourcing it, and given the fact that we've mostly figured out how to work around IE's problems at this point, I'm not sure if it'd be worth the effort to do so.
It'd probably be best to just retire IE, let developers continue struggling through the known-workarounds they've been using until its market-share vanishes, and look forward instead of back. The time spent trying to figure out IE's source could be better spent developing/using a better platform.
Regardless, I think every web browser should be open source, since they work on (theoretically) open standards, run cross platform, and are the defacto presentation layer for an increasing number of applications. Developers need to be able to understand the internals of the browser to assure the best quality of their own work. Really hoping that's what happens with whatever MS announces today with Spartan. (I just don't think IE is worth the effort to open source at this point)
I dunno, we're not a really large town, and we have an industrial electronics distributor who also sells to the public out of their warehouse. It's quite possible we're just lucky - we have a fair number of local manufacturers who they work with, so I imagine that's what keeps them in the area.
Us geeks despise the idea of a walled garden source for software installs, but at least it nominally protects users against this kind of stuff.
Yes - things sneak through from time to time, but it's still orders of magnitude safer than Joe User hoping to find a program online to perform the same task that won't bring his web browsers grinding to a halt with fifteen toolbars.
The process goes something like this:
"Help. My computer is slow."
"You need to clean up the malware."
"Okay, I did a Google for malware cleaner. That only made it worse."
"Oh, you have to install Malwarebytes. That software's a fake."
"Okay, I don't know how I was supposed to know it was fake, but now I've installed Malwarebytes. Things got worse."
"That's because the first search result in Google is actually an ad for somebody else distributing Malwarebytes with its own malware. You have to go to this page instead."
"Okay, I don't know I was supposed to know that too, but now I've installed it. Why is it still not working?"
"Because the malware on your computer redirects attempts to remove the malware on your computer."
"Fuck this. I'm buying a tablet."
(one month later)
"How do I delete all this crap on my tablet?"
"You can't unless you root it. Here's a guide that a five year old child could follow, with only a 10% chance of bricking your unit."
"Then fetch me a fucking five year old child because I'm paralyzed by learned helplessness by this point."
I think we forget how overwhelming and stacked against the user the entire process is.
How many modern systems can anybody imagine still working and apparently doing what we need them to 40 years from now?
The real irony is that the article he's so upset about painted him as an emotionally unstable and clueless twit with a propensity for going on tirades and rants.
Presuming that this proof reached via impressively tortured logic does have merit: Does it mean that it is also impossible to build a purely evil robot that would always kill maliciously?
Why, this Microsoft certification test is so simple a five year old child could pass it.
Run out and find me a five year old child. I can't make head nor tail out of it.
I feel bad for Howard Warshaw (the designer of E.T.). He was given all of five weeks by Atari to design and program the game, from concept to final product. I imagine he realized at some point that the game was awful, but had no choice but to sign off on it because there was no way to rework it in that kind of time frame.
The complete opposite of Blizzard and Valve, who've shown a willingness to delay or outright cancel games that aren't up to snuff rather than release low quality products. (At least Blizzard used to be like that.)
I agree with not going into "panic mode", but we don't know who did this yet. It might be a person who could have been dealt with by improved public mental health, or it may have been a foreign actor engaging in terrorism against the Canadian state.
We can't call what it is until we have facts. And we have precious few right now. Which is all the more reason not to panic.
This is a loss for all the flagmakers who were gearing up to produce whatever the new UK flag would be. How often do you get the chance to sell a new flag to everybody in a nation?
How would this impact MacBooks, iMacs, etc? You can't really buy OS X separately, and upgrades have become free so I don't even know that there's anything to refund.
I'm pretty sure Apple stores have replacement stock on hand. Anytime I've had to get my phone replaced under AppleCare+, I've been able to make my appointment, walk in, and walk out with a (presumably refurbed) new phone from a box in the back. Heck, if the replacement didn't work in the store, they had even more replacements ready to go.
This is probably the result of Apple being able to afford to keep that kind of inventory on hand in their stores. Plus, Apple doesn't exactly have a lot of models of phones. A carrier like T-Mobile or Verizon would have to keep a frankly excessive number of phones on hand for any immediate warranty replacements. (How many Samsung phones are on the market at any given time?)
On the gripping hand, it's not like smartphones are exactly *large* and would take up a lot of space in the backroom so...
I think it'd be a nice customer service perk (and part of the reason I stick with Apple) but not something that needs to be legislated. Do carriers not keep cheap loaners in stock that you can borrow (with a credit card deposit) until your actual replacement shows up?
There's not enough fingers in the world to count all the awful apps that violate most of Apple's so-called "standards."
My favorite are the apps that have a string of words from other popular apps' names in them, just to muck up the search results. And they make sure to periodically change the icon to look like another app as well.
They only tested Android smartphones. So we don't know if this is something specific to Android or not. Not like anybody uses iPhones, huh?
Is it a common thing for employees to stick around when they're not getting paid? I've read a lot of stories of software development houses where the paychecks dried up, but people stayed on holding out hope for a paycheck.
How often do companies recover from a situation where they're unable to pay salaries for a period of time?