Everyone I have talked to who has been forced to use the ribbon has eventually concluded that it is indeed a better interface than the old toolbar/menu combo. The only ones I know who still complain about the ribbon are the ones who never gave it a real chance
You know a different crowd than I, then. I know a lot of people who use the ribbon on a daily basis, and have for quite a long time. They've all given it a real chance. I'd say that 8 or 9 out of ten of them think it's a barely-acceptable horrorshow.
A bright laser pointer aimed directly into the lens ought to damage the CCD
No, it won't. But even if it did...
however I doubt very much that the police would even lay charges over such an incident,
They probably wouldn't but not because of what the guy is doing. However, the police don't need to do anything at all -- he can sue for damages from the vandalism without them, and he'd win from a purely legal standpoint.
An arbitrary person pointing a camera at you is somebody you do not know, and you have had absolutely no involvement in getting them to point that camera at you.
Just like surveillance cameras.
In a democratic society, however, the government is elected by the people, and for their term is entrusted by them to preserve the best interests of that society. This is entirely different from some random person you meet on the street, and have no prior connection to.
Well, first, there's the issue of whether or not we live in a democratic society and therefore whether or not the rest of this paragraph applies, but for the sake of argument let's say we do.
I still disagree that this is entirely different -- but there are some slight differences. I would argue that institutionalized surveillance is even more objectionable than what this guys is doing. The amount of harm that can come from this guy's actions is limited, as he has limited authority and power. The amount of harm that can come from the government doing the same thing is much, much greater.
It's good, if incredibly obvious advice, to avoid giving real personal details to websites. But Mr. Smith is still too trusting, as he includes government and "large commercial" sites as places where it's OK to be honest. I disagree, particularly with the large commercial sites. They are more likely to combine your information with data from other sources, and are therefore even riskier than mom-and-pop sites.
What they're essentially saying is that free speech can only be practiced as long as it doesn't offend anyone.
How about saying that free speech can be practised without slander? The problem with some is not the speech, but the content.
Slander is saying something unflattering about someone that you know is untrue. Where was slander committed? I think that the people speaking believed what they were saying.
> they STILL somehow believe that "goodness" can only come from religion. That's nonsense.
Have you ever considered, though, that for some people that is the truth though? That maybe these are people whose only motivation for good comes from religion and therefore cannot understand those who don't need religion to be decent?
People who need religion to be decent are not decent. You are not a moral person if the reason that you behave that way is because you fear the repercussions if you don't.
I don't agree at all that Germany should get some kind of special censorship allowance. I've long thought that their laws in this respect were beyond the pale.
I'm a live and let live kind of guy, and I don't care what imaginary phantasms people want to worship. It doesn't affect me, doesn't harm me, and is often mildly amusing.
However, when these people promote legislation that forces me to adhere to any aspect of their delusions, including telling me what I can or cannot say about them, my tolerance comes to and end.
Java and Flash updates are annoying because the user has to update. Compare with Chrome silent updates; do you really think the user cares if they're on version 13 or 24?
True, silent updates reduce one of the annoying things about rapid release, but it doesn't touch the rest of them. I stopped using Chrome in part because of rapid-release. I don't care what the Chrome version number is, but I care a great deal about unexpected changes.
I agree totally with this, but I may be biased. As a user, I find this rapid-release trend to be incredibly annoying. So annoying that it is a factor against my using a particular piece of software. Aside from emergencies, I cannot think of any compelling benefit rapid-release gives me, and it gives me two main headaches: an ever-changing piece of software, and the introduction of new bugs at any random time -- so it's a net minus.
Sure. These comments are all about Metro on the desktop, not on tablets or phones or anything (where Metro is reasonable).
Ignoring aesthetics (I find the Metro UI to be one of the more hideous UIs I've seen in a long time), I have two main complaints about it.
There's a basic usability issue. Metro does not work efficiently with a mouse. For many tasks that I do frequently, multiple clicks and mouse movements are required. Metro also make use of "hot spots", which cause me no end of trouble.
The biggest issue, though, is that the Metro interface does not effectively replace the start menu at all. Really, it's more of a desktop replacement (and a poor one at that, which I'll gripe about next paragraph). As a start menu replacement, Metro give less relevant information less densely packed than the start menu did. It does not allow the ability to browse all installed applications. True, I can launch all apps by typing their name, but that requires me to remember what they're called. It's much easier just to find them in a menu.
Although it's true that most of the time I'm running one of the same half-dozen apps, Metro does not make that easier than the old way of pinning the apps at all, so there's no benefit.
So, in my view, it's an anemic, half-hearted replacement for a start menu. Which I don't actually object to, as it's clearly not meant to be a start menu replacement -- if so, then we've lost an awful lot of functionality. It's really a desktop replacement.
As a desktop replacement, it isn't even close to what I need. Too much real estate is wasted, too much clicking is required, and the lack of the taskbar borders on a deal-killer, since it offers no real functional alternative to that.
All of these disadvantages would be OK is Metro gave some kind of serious advantage to me, however it does not. Metro does nothing that I couldn't do on the normal desktop, and it mostly does it less efficiently.
The problem isn't Metro, though. The problem is Metro on the desktop. It simply isn't suitable for the desktop. Where Microsoft went wrong is in the idea of having one UI to rule them all. It's not possible without making that UI suck on some or all of the platforms. A better option would have been to do it like the Linuxes do: have a standard programmatic interface on which you can bolt any UI you wish.
Since the court hasn't ruled, that statement is not fact. From a common-sense point of view, though, it's pretty ahrd to understand why it shouldn't be allowed.
Copyright is about creating a de jure monopoly on intellectual property so you can charge what the market will bear.
Copyright is about creating a temporary monopoly, yes, but the monopoly is on production, not distribution. This act doesn't violate that at all -- the guy wasn't printing the books, he was legally purchasing them. The publisher still has the monopoly on production.
Except that any sane company is going to go out of their way to manufacture as much as possible outside the U.S. so that they get to decide whether or not you can sell it.
That's sociopathic behavior, so definition no company that does it is sane. Unfortunately, most multinational companies are sociopathic.
It is there. Click in the corner where the start button used to be, and the start screen comes up. Hit the windows key, and the start screen comes up.
The start screen is not the start menu. The start screen is much less convenient and efficient for most of the things I use the start menu for.
There is a real usability issue here -- I'm speaking as someone who has been using Win 8 & Metro quite a lot over the last few months, not someone who's regurgitating things I've read on blogs. The Metro interface may be good on tablets & phones, but it's awful on the desktop.
Slashdot Mirror
Everyone I have talked to who has been forced to use the ribbon has eventually concluded that it is indeed a better interface than the old toolbar/menu combo. The only ones I know who still complain about the ribbon are the ones who never gave it a real chance
You know a different crowd than I, then. I know a lot of people who use the ribbon on a daily basis, and have for quite a long time. They've all given it a real chance. I'd say that 8 or 9 out of ten of them think it's a barely-acceptable horrorshow.
Should you report it? Yes
In the absence of having to make an insurance claim, why should you report it?
Also, in my state at least, you can legally avoid purchasing car insurance by posting a bond instead.
A bright laser pointer aimed directly into the lens ought to damage the CCD
No, it won't. But even if it did...
however I doubt very much that the police would even lay charges over such an incident,
They probably wouldn't but not because of what the guy is doing. However, the police don't need to do anything at all -- he can sue for damages from the vandalism without them, and he'd win from a purely legal standpoint.
An arbitrary person pointing a camera at you is somebody you do not know, and you have had absolutely no involvement in getting them to point that camera at you.
Just like surveillance cameras.
In a democratic society, however, the government is elected by the people, and for their term is entrusted by them to preserve the best interests of that society. This is entirely different from some random person you meet on the street, and have no prior connection to.
Well, first, there's the issue of whether or not we live in a democratic society and therefore whether or not the rest of this paragraph applies, but for the sake of argument let's say we do.
I still disagree that this is entirely different -- but there are some slight differences. I would argue that institutionalized surveillance is even more objectionable than what this guys is doing. The amount of harm that can come from this guy's actions is limited, as he has limited authority and power. The amount of harm that can come from the government doing the same thing is much, much greater.
It's good, if incredibly obvious advice, to avoid giving real personal details to websites. But Mr. Smith is still too trusting, as he includes government and "large commercial" sites as places where it's OK to be honest. I disagree, particularly with the large commercial sites. They are more likely to combine your information with data from other sources, and are therefore even riskier than mom-and-pop sites.
Application compatibility is a nice win for x86 BUT.. the truth is you'll likely not want to run desktop applications on a tablet anyway.
But you might want to be able to run apps that Microsoft hasn't given specific approval to. For that, you'll need the x86 version.
Solution: send your kids to a private school. Now it is up to the parents to make sure the kid is in school so they get their money's worth.
Uhh, that's true regardless of public vs private.
Also, those kids who can't go to private school? Fuck 'em.
How about saying that free speech can be practised without slander? The problem with some is not the speech, but the content.
Slander is saying something unflattering about someone that you know is untrue. Where was slander committed? I think that the people speaking believed what they were saying.
Also, speech & content are the same thing.
And Christianity.
> they STILL somehow believe that "goodness" can only come from religion. That's nonsense.
Have you ever considered, though, that for some people that is the truth though? That maybe these are people whose only motivation for good comes from religion and therefore cannot understand those who don't need religion to be decent?
People who need religion to be decent are not decent. You are not a moral person if the reason that you behave that way is because you fear the repercussions if you don't.
I don't agree at all that Germany should get some kind of special censorship allowance. I've long thought that their laws in this respect were beyond the pale.
In me, anyway.
I'm a live and let live kind of guy, and I don't care what imaginary phantasms people want to worship. It doesn't affect me, doesn't harm me, and is often mildly amusing.
However, when these people promote legislation that forces me to adhere to any aspect of their delusions, including telling me what I can or cannot say about them, my tolerance comes to and end.
If you are in a startup and the cost of a bad push is $0, no problem.
Except to your customers.
At one prior job, it was official written policy to NEVER upgrade to the latest release of ANYTHING
That is a very, very wise policy.
You can do rapid deployments poorly and you can do them well.
True, as with all things.
But when you really really need to deploy and *can't* because of the red tape involved, you're in bad shape.
But if you're in that position, the problem isn't your choice of release model, it's that you're doing your release model poorly.
Java and Flash updates are annoying because the user has to update. Compare with Chrome silent updates; do you really think the user cares if they're on version 13 or 24?
True, silent updates reduce one of the annoying things about rapid release, but it doesn't touch the rest of them. I stopped using Chrome in part because of rapid-release. I don't care what the Chrome version number is, but I care a great deal about unexpected changes.
I agree totally with this, but I may be biased. As a user, I find this rapid-release trend to be incredibly annoying. So annoying that it is a factor against my using a particular piece of software. Aside from emergencies, I cannot think of any compelling benefit rapid-release gives me, and it gives me two main headaches: an ever-changing piece of software, and the introduction of new bugs at any random time -- so it's a net minus.
Sure. These comments are all about Metro on the desktop, not on tablets or phones or anything (where Metro is reasonable).
Ignoring aesthetics (I find the Metro UI to be one of the more hideous UIs I've seen in a long time), I have two main complaints about it.
There's a basic usability issue. Metro does not work efficiently with a mouse. For many tasks that I do frequently, multiple clicks and mouse movements are required. Metro also make use of "hot spots", which cause me no end of trouble.
The biggest issue, though, is that the Metro interface does not effectively replace the start menu at all. Really, it's more of a desktop replacement (and a poor one at that, which I'll gripe about next paragraph). As a start menu replacement, Metro give less relevant information less densely packed than the start menu did. It does not allow the ability to browse all installed applications. True, I can launch all apps by typing their name, but that requires me to remember what they're called. It's much easier just to find them in a menu.
Although it's true that most of the time I'm running one of the same half-dozen apps, Metro does not make that easier than the old way of pinning the apps at all, so there's no benefit.
So, in my view, it's an anemic, half-hearted replacement for a start menu. Which I don't actually object to, as it's clearly not meant to be a start menu replacement -- if so, then we've lost an awful lot of functionality. It's really a desktop replacement.
As a desktop replacement, it isn't even close to what I need. Too much real estate is wasted, too much clicking is required, and the lack of the taskbar borders on a deal-killer, since it offers no real functional alternative to that.
All of these disadvantages would be OK is Metro gave some kind of serious advantage to me, however it does not. Metro does nothing that I couldn't do on the normal desktop, and it mostly does it less efficiently.
The problem isn't Metro, though. The problem is Metro on the desktop. It simply isn't suitable for the desktop. Where Microsoft went wrong is in the idea of having one UI to rule them all. It's not possible without making that UI suck on some or all of the platforms. A better option would have been to do it like the Linuxes do: have a standard programmatic interface on which you can bolt any UI you wish.
No, you don't, in fact, get to do that.
Since the court hasn't ruled, that statement is not fact. From a common-sense point of view, though, it's pretty ahrd to understand why it shouldn't be allowed.
Copyright is about creating a de jure monopoly on intellectual property so you can charge what the market will bear.
Copyright is about creating a temporary monopoly, yes, but the monopoly is on production, not distribution. This act doesn't violate that at all -- the guy wasn't printing the books, he was legally purchasing them. The publisher still has the monopoly on production.
The idea that a company can restrict an item for sale in a specific region may seem fair.
Uh, no, that doesn't seem fair at all.
That's still horrible - but not nearly as bad as the article summary would have you believe.
How is that not nearly as bad? It seems equally bad to me...
Except that any sane company is going to go out of their way to manufacture as much as possible outside the U.S. so that they get to decide whether or not you can sell it.
That's sociopathic behavior, so definition no company that does it is sane. Unfortunately, most multinational companies are sociopathic.
It is there. Click in the corner where the start button used to be, and the start screen comes up. Hit the windows key, and the start screen comes up.
The start screen is not the start menu. The start screen is much less convenient and efficient for most of the things I use the start menu for.
There is a real usability issue here -- I'm speaking as someone who has been using Win 8 & Metro quite a lot over the last few months, not someone who's regurgitating things I've read on blogs. The Metro interface may be good on tablets & phones, but it's awful on the desktop.
Except it's not still there. The function of that space is to take you to the Metro interface, not to bring up the start menu.