You are already deeply infected. You are requiring MS Office compatibility! Or did you not even notice that? The failure of the users was when they started to use MS Office, not now that they do not have a choice left, due to their own stupidity.
Wrong, you failed reading comprehension, I don't require MS Office compatibility at all. The only one claiming people need Windows and MS Office is you. Nobody needs MS Office, if you need to open an MS Office document then Libre/Open Office or Google Docs do a fine job of it - no need for MS Office. And if you want to archive documents do it in an open format rather than an MS Office format.
The reason people need Windows (or to an extent OS X) is for all the CAD/CAM/CAE, photo editing, audio editing, video editing, architectural/product design and manufacturing software, games, etc... that doesn't run on Linux. Nobody is tied to Windows because of MS Office, that's the least of the problems.
Software that unnecessarily calls home when not necessary to carry out requested function or otherwise uploads information about me, my system or use of the software without explicitly asking first I consider to be violating my privacy.
They explicitly tell you all of this in no uncertain terms before you can even download the software. If you feel that would be "violating your privacy" then you wouldn't have signed up for it.
Privacy for me stems from social contract / basic human need to be left alone.
So why would you sign up for this program then?
I hope they reconsider the keylogger and explicit notification. If you ask people nicely to participate they will....
You can't even get the software without applying to participate in the program and the process of signing up is clogged with warnings that they collect information and links to a privacy policy that states quite plainly and clearly that they are broadly collecting data during your participation in the program.
Informed consent; a condition not satisfied by something buried in dozens of pages of legal boilerplate.
But it isn't "buried in dozens of pages of legal boilerplate", it's right there at the start of the privacy policy and linked to multiple times in the explanation of the program informing the user that data will be collected, in addition it is written in plain English.
Requiring consent as a condition of use may be fine; failing to place a large, explicit notice on screen is utterly disrespectful to the user and an unconscionable violation of the most basic security practices.
Downloading and running software like this when the information about it is clearly presented to you (even more clearly than in previous pre-release programs from Microsoft and other vendors) is an unconscionable demonstration of stupidity. I would hate for things to get to the point where everything has to be idiot-proofed such that everytime any application sends any data you have to agree to a large explicit notice on screen.
It's not a word game, it is very simple: your argument hinges on the use of a term (well actually you add a new synonym with every post to avoid the question) so define it. How does one avoid a "privacy violation" or "unacceptable behavior" or your newly added "fundamentally indefensible behavior" when you cannot define what they are? You clearly feel very strongly about something but you can't seem to articulate what that is.
The fact this is an unacceptable privacy violation is crystal clear.
It tells you in no uncertain terms that you do not have privacy when using it, that is not a "privacy violation" by any definition of the term. Perhaps you need to define what you think "privacy violation" means because you don't seem to understand the term.
Right, because Microsoft is going to rip the complete functionality out of Windows when they are done, and not leave any bits in which will compromise the security of the system.
This approach makes it easier to remove that functionality, instead of adding recording functionality to every part of Windows and every control to capture timing and user input they just drop a keylogger on top which they can then easily remove afterwards.
Well, yes. And many people are satisfied with the utter trash that MS Office is, because they do not know any better. And as soon as they have made that mistake, MS Windows is the only way they can go and they can (and are) fed utter crap and do not notice.
No, Libre/Open Office and Google Apps can open MS Office documents and MS Office apps can write out to various other formats, you may come across the odd formatting bug here and there or have to re-index your ToC and none of that is a big deal nor is that keeping anybody using Windows.
None of which requires them to know the passwords that I enter into websites or applications.
They don't know those things unless you actually use it, so why - given that they outline all these details in their privacy policy - are you using it? There is really no reason to try this out except for interest sake, it isn't the release you would be testing software or hardware compatibility with.
-install the Program, we may collect information about your device and applications and use it for purposes such as determining or improving compatibility, -use voice input features like speech-to-text, we may collect voice information and use it for purposes such as improving speech processing, -open a file, we may collect information about the file, the application used to open the file, and how long it takes any use it for purposes such as improving performance, or -enter text, we may collect typed characters and use them for purposes such as improving autocomplete and spellcheck features. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-au/windows/preview-privacy-statement
Like all previous software test versions. So that users could test their actual applications
That's not what the technical preview is for, the details have not been finalized yet so testing your applications against it now is pointless, they make that point quite clear:
So I'm not sure where you're getting any idea that testing on this version would be of any benefit.
Then they detail how they may work to resolve issues: Also, if your PC runs into problems, Microsoft will likely examine your system files. If the privacy of your system files is a concern, consider using a different PC. For more info, read our privacy statement. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-au/windows/preview-faq#faq=tab0
So if you've gotten this far and you're paranoid about privacy would you not think "ok maybe this technical preview is not something i want to be involved in?"
The joy with which people defend the jackboot of their opressor as it pounds down upon their faces is a bit scary sometimes.
As is the joy with which people who don't read come up with conspiracy theories about how everybody is out to get you! I'm sure this is all some big conspiracy (probably with the NSA?) to get people to install this technical preview and get their passwords to their email (though I thought the NSA already had all this stuff) so they can find out if you're a terrorist.
"Great"? You must not know any other OSes. It is a mediocre thing that took several decades longer to reach what others have had a long, long time.
Depends on what you define as "great", for almost all people the value of the operating system is in its ability to run their applications, not the underlying technical details, so for desktop users Windows likely ranks first, followed by OS X with desktop Linux a distant third. That's why the usage statistics look the way they do. Then if you were to look at smartphones you'd likely have iOS and Android pretty much tied for first with Windows and Blackberry a fair way behind.
More like it was not a good UI without touch, and you couldn't necessarily avoid it.
Of course you could, the only reason to use it was to launch applications if you didn't want to use one of the other 3 ways to launch applications and even then once you were running your applications they didn't use the new UI.
Metro apps had fixed-size windows, and usually wanted to take the whole screen.
Unless you had a touch device you wouldn't even use those programs.
The real questions are: Should the consumer (or some reselller?) be allowed to turn the working features back on? Is it OK if NVIDIA tries to prevent this with code signing?
Well I would say yes to both questions. nVidia can "turn them off" however they like and the user can try to turn them on however they like.
A network connection sure, but requiring a network connection that mainframe is an unnecessary and pointless restriction in an effort to hamstring the wrong operating system into your setup when you can just run the right operating system for your applications instead.
Because it was different, you were presented with a simple grid of icons to launch your applications and then your applications worked exactly as they had before, very simple... but different. The truth is the idea that "all they need to know is which icon to click on to do what", is nice in theory but doesn't fly in reality.
You've probably got a bunch of crapware running in the background or aren't taking into consideration that the committed amount of RAM also included paged virtual memory. Here are a few links that show the memory usage:
Yes clearly a reliable source that one, a real bastion of knowledge. Comparing "Linux" (which is just an operating system kernel) to OSX, Windows, Solaris, etc... As though all Linux-based operating systems are equal in security. So we are to believe Android is more secure than OSX too? After all that's Linux. Seriously what bunch of morons comes up with a list like that?
You can get mostly any linux distro to run on any computer since like a Pentium 2 (dependent on DE/WM).
The operating system, yes. But nobody wants to just run an operating system, even just a simple modern web browser consumes more resources than those older systems have available.
Most modern Linux DEs look and act very similar to Windows because they're designed to do the same thing.
Like which ones? Linux MINT looks like Windows 3.1 with some odd start menu that looks completely inconsistent. Surely you've seen the uproar when Microsoft took the start menu away, people don't like even the most simple changes to the way things work.
Your typical office worker doesn't need to know more about using Linux than he does about using Windows, meaning that all they need to know is which icon to click on to do what.
Then why was there such an uproar about Windows 8's "metro" (or whatever it's called now) UI? All it had was a grid of icons so - as you say - all they need to know is which icon to click on to do what.
You seem to have missed the tail end of that: Adobe is bringing the king of all photo editing software, Photoshop, to Linux-based Chrome OS, not on to every Linux system and also it is a streaming, cloud-hosted version so "Photoshop is coming to Linux" is a bit disingenuous.
Other than that pointer-intensive 64-bit programs run more slowly than pointer-intensive 32-bit programs because of all the cache misses.
The more cache misses are in general balanced out by fewer cache accesses on 64bit systems, really the only place you're going to see a tangible difference is in the numbers on synthetic benchmarks. Anything doing significant floating point calculations is going to be a lot faster on 64bit than 32bit. I know you're saying "pointer-intensive" 64bit programs run more slowly but could you quantify "more slowly" and give an example? It doesn't seem like a likely real world situation given the other advantages of 64bit architectures.
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You are already deeply infected. You are requiring MS Office compatibility! Or did you not even notice that? The failure of the users was when they started to use MS Office, not now that they do not have a choice left, due to their own stupidity.
Wrong, you failed reading comprehension, I don't require MS Office compatibility at all. The only one claiming people need Windows and MS Office is you. Nobody needs MS Office, if you need to open an MS Office document then Libre/Open Office or Google Docs do a fine job of it - no need for MS Office. And if you want to archive documents do it in an open format rather than an MS Office format.
The reason people need Windows (or to an extent OS X) is for all the CAD/CAM/CAE, photo editing, audio editing, video editing, architectural/product design and manufacturing software, games, etc... that doesn't run on Linux. Nobody is tied to Windows because of MS Office, that's the least of the problems.
Software that unnecessarily calls home when not necessary to carry out requested function or otherwise uploads information about me, my system or use of the software without explicitly asking first I consider to be violating my privacy.
They explicitly tell you all of this in no uncertain terms before you can even download the software. If you feel that would be "violating your privacy" then you wouldn't have signed up for it.
Privacy for me stems from social contract / basic human need to be left alone.
So why would you sign up for this program then?
I hope they reconsider the keylogger and explicit notification. If you ask people nicely to participate they will....
You can't even get the software without applying to participate in the program and the process of signing up is clogged with warnings that they collect information and links to a privacy policy that states quite plainly and clearly that they are broadly collecting data during your participation in the program.
So I can test that the software I need to use works on the new OS before committing to paying for multiple copies.
Why would you be doing that with a tech preview that they explicitly state is subject to change significantly before release?
Informed consent; a condition not satisfied by something buried in dozens of pages of legal boilerplate.
But it isn't "buried in dozens of pages of legal boilerplate", it's right there at the start of the privacy policy and linked to multiple times in the explanation of the program informing the user that data will be collected, in addition it is written in plain English.
Requiring consent as a condition of use may be fine; failing to place a large, explicit notice on screen is utterly disrespectful to the user and an unconscionable violation of the most basic security practices.
Downloading and running software like this when the information about it is clearly presented to you (even more clearly than in previous pre-release programs from Microsoft and other vendors) is an unconscionable demonstration of stupidity. I would hate for things to get to the point where everything has to be idiot-proofed such that everytime any application sends any data you have to agree to a large explicit notice on screen.
No interest in playing subjective word games.
It's not a word game, it is very simple: your argument hinges on the use of a term (well actually you add a new synonym with every post to avoid the question) so define it. How does one avoid a "privacy violation" or "unacceptable behavior" or your newly added "fundamentally indefensible behavior" when you cannot define what they are? You clearly feel very strongly about something but you can't seem to articulate what that is.
Now you're using the term "unacceptable behavior" to avoid the question, try again and define what you think "privacy violation" means.
The fact this is an unacceptable privacy violation is crystal clear.
It tells you in no uncertain terms that you do not have privacy when using it, that is not a "privacy violation" by any definition of the term. Perhaps you need to define what you think "privacy violation" means because you don't seem to understand the term.
As it stands the only information publically available described in the privacy policy states:
"enter text, we may collect typed characters "
So what's your issue? It seems pretty clear.
Right, because Microsoft is going to rip the complete functionality out of Windows when they are done, and not leave any bits in which will compromise the security of the system.
This approach makes it easier to remove that functionality, instead of adding recording functionality to every part of Windows and every control to capture timing and user input they just drop a keylogger on top which they can then easily remove afterwards.
Well, yes. And many people are satisfied with the utter trash that MS Office is, because they do not know any better. And as soon as they have made that mistake, MS Windows is the only way they can go and they can (and are) fed utter crap and do not notice.
No, Libre/Open Office and Google Apps can open MS Office documents and MS Office apps can write out to various other formats, you may come across the odd formatting bug here and there or have to re-index your ToC and none of that is a big deal nor is that keeping anybody using Windows.
None of which requires them to know the passwords that I enter into websites or applications.
They don't know those things unless you actually use it, so why - given that they outline all these details in their privacy policy - are you using it? There is really no reason to try this out except for interest sake, it isn't the release you would be testing software or hardware compatibility with.
-install the Program, we may collect information about your device and applications and use it for purposes such as determining or improving compatibility,
-use voice input features like speech-to-text, we may collect voice information and use it for purposes such as improving speech processing,
-open a file, we may collect information about the file, the application used to open the file, and how long it takes any use it for purposes such as improving performance, or
-enter text, we may collect typed characters and use them for purposes such as improving autocomplete and spellcheck features.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-au/windows/preview-privacy-statement
Like all previous software test versions. So that users could test their actual applications
That's not what the technical preview is for, the details have not been finalized yet so testing your applications against it now is pointless, they make that point quite clear:
Windows Technical Preview may be substantially modified before it’s commercially released.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-au/windows/preview
So I'm not sure where you're getting any idea that testing on this version would be of any benefit.
Then they detail how they may work to resolve issues:
Also, if your PC runs into problems, Microsoft will likely examine your system files. If the privacy of your system files is a concern, consider using a different PC. For more info, read our privacy statement.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-au/windows/preview-faq#faq=tab0
So if you've gotten this far and you're paranoid about privacy would you not think "ok maybe this technical preview is not something i want to be involved in?"
The joy with which people defend the jackboot of their opressor as it pounds down upon their faces is a bit scary sometimes.
As is the joy with which people who don't read come up with conspiracy theories about how everybody is out to get you! I'm sure this is all some big conspiracy (probably with the NSA?) to get people to install this technical preview and get their passwords to their email (though I thought the NSA already had all this stuff) so they can find out if you're a terrorist.
"Great"? You must not know any other OSes. It is a mediocre thing that took several decades longer to reach what others have had a long, long time.
Depends on what you define as "great", for almost all people the value of the operating system is in its ability to run their applications, not the underlying technical details, so for desktop users Windows likely ranks first, followed by OS X with desktop Linux a distant third. That's why the usage statistics look the way they do. Then if you were to look at smartphones you'd likely have iOS and Android pretty much tied for first with Windows and Blackberry a fair way behind.
More like it was not a good UI without touch, and you couldn't necessarily avoid it.
Of course you could, the only reason to use it was to launch applications if you didn't want to use one of the other 3 ways to launch applications and even then once you were running your applications they didn't use the new UI.
Metro apps had fixed-size windows, and usually wanted to take the whole screen.
Unless you had a touch device you wouldn't even use those programs.
The real questions are: Should the consumer (or some reselller?) be allowed to turn the working features back on? Is it OK if NVIDIA tries to prevent this with code signing?
Well I would say yes to both questions. nVidia can "turn them off" however they like and the user can try to turn them on however they like.
Is that something that actually occurs? Even if it is, the solution is VMs, not a dependence on a mainframe.
A network connection sure, but requiring a network connection that mainframe is an unnecessary and pointless restriction in an effort to hamstring the wrong operating system into your setup when you can just run the right operating system for your applications instead.
Why was there such an uproar over Metro?
Because it was different, you were presented with a simple grid of icons to launch your applications and then your applications worked exactly as they had before, very simple ... but different. The truth is the idea that "all they need to know is which icon to click on to do what", is nice in theory but doesn't fly in reality.
You've probably got a bunch of crapware running in the background or aren't taking into consideration that the committed amount of RAM also included paged virtual memory. Here are a few links that show the memory usage:
XP, Vista and 7 baselines
Usage with 512MB RAM
7 SP1 Compared to 8
Yes clearly a reliable source that one, a real bastion of knowledge. Comparing "Linux" (which is just an operating system kernel) to OSX, Windows, Solaris, etc... As though all Linux-based operating systems are equal in security. So we are to believe Android is more secure than OSX too? After all that's Linux. Seriously what bunch of morons comes up with a list like that?
You can get mostly any linux distro to run on any computer since like a Pentium 2 (dependent on DE/WM).
The operating system, yes. But nobody wants to just run an operating system, even just a simple modern web browser consumes more resources than those older systems have available.
Why? Having a mainframe and a dependence on a network connection to that mainframe is a bad thing, not a good thing.
Most modern Linux DEs look and act very similar to Windows because they're designed to do the same thing.
Like which ones? Linux MINT looks like Windows 3.1 with some odd start menu that looks completely inconsistent. Surely you've seen the uproar when Microsoft took the start menu away, people don't like even the most simple changes to the way things work.
Your typical office worker doesn't need to know more about using Linux than he does about using Windows, meaning that all they need to know is which icon to click on to do what.
Then why was there such an uproar about Windows 8's "metro" (or whatever it's called now) UI? All it had was a grid of icons so - as you say - all they need to know is which icon to click on to do what.
You must have missed this: Photoshop is coming to Linux
You seem to have missed the tail end of that: Adobe is bringing the king of all photo editing software, Photoshop, to Linux-based Chrome OS , not on to every Linux system and also it is a streaming, cloud-hosted version so "Photoshop is coming to Linux" is a bit disingenuous.
Other than that pointer-intensive 64-bit programs run more slowly than pointer-intensive 32-bit programs because of all the cache misses.
The more cache misses are in general balanced out by fewer cache accesses on 64bit systems, really the only place you're going to see a tangible difference is in the numbers on synthetic benchmarks. Anything doing significant floating point calculations is going to be a lot faster on 64bit than 32bit. I know you're saying "pointer-intensive" 64bit programs run more slowly but could you quantify "more slowly" and give an example? It doesn't seem like a likely real world situation given the other advantages of 64bit architectures.