psychologists will frown upon any research where the subjects do not know they are part of a research project..
Why? I'd have thought the opposite in cases like this, because if the subjects were aware they could modify thier behaviour.
Actually, there are loads of psychological research done on unaware subjects. Just a random example : an architect watching how people negotiate a busy hotel lobby, so he can design better hotel lobbies in future.
"create innovative software experiences for these new input mechanisms"
"controls for air condition and infotainment"
"big, forgiving gestures that can be performed anywhere.... the interface leverages the driver’s muscle memory"
What a load of BS. Why do I need an "innovative software experience" when I am driving FFS? The very glossiness of his web page shows him up as a salesman. FAIL
A screen is essentially for looking at. You should not be looking at a screen while driving. I know my car controls - old-fashioned knobs and buttons - by feel.
Who would have thought that this thread would turn into a flame war?
Hmm...
Flame war? On the contrary, I have never before seen a/. story where the comments are so much in agreement with each other. Even where pwnies himself has pitched in a couple of times he is basically in agreement with everyone else that the Metro interface is dumb and a failure.
State funded companies are funded while it's interesting for the State that that company exists, and sorely abandoned in the exact millisecond that it's not interesting anymore.
Funny, I have always heard that as an "advantage" of capitalism - that investors would move their money elsewhere the moment it was no longer in their interest to keep it with a losing company. It is usually phrased in terms like "private capital is quick on its feet / nimble / flexible".
He lost to someone who spent much of their life practicing the game. That doesn't really mean anything.
No-one (except perhaps his closest worshippers) would have expected Gates to win. But 71 seconds ?? Surely most people who had played chess before could have held out that long.
this might work as an emergency ration, or perhaps a diet regimen, but I'm not seeing the attraction otherwise.
The attraction is seen by those futurists, politicians and economists (ie most of them) who's wet dream is an ever-increasing population (constantly supplying cheap labour from the bottom level) leading to a "paradise" in which we all live in a 50-storey structure of habitation cells (fed by piped Soylent), covering the entire face of the earth, with themselves at the top level in the luxury apartments. A bit like in Soylent Green but with the slums cleared away.
Paradoxically, this is also where the "Greens" and vegetarians would lead us, because most "Greens" are not actually interested in "greenery" and nature at all, but rather want the world to be turned into a renewable energy machine at any cost.
You don't have to replace your entire diet with Soylent.
Of course you don't. But then it ceases to be news, it's just another food alongside others.
But this is newsworthy because this guy is replacing his entire diet diet with this stuff, and recommending others do so too. That's serious (and scary).
FTFA : - "Chrome's extension auto-update mechanism silently pushed out the update "
Google need to disconnect their Chrome core update mechanism from the extension updates (unless ones of their own authorship). Of course, they cannot do anything about users accepting updates directly from independent extension writers.
Many people running an "unauthorized" copy of XP turned off the automatic updates. No update requests, and no slowdowns.
My wife's PC has this problem, caused by a bug which I understand was introduced during an update. I turned off Automatic Updates, BUT that did not solve the problem - it was still disk-thrashing after every boot, and you have to stop SVCHOST via Task Manager or it goes on for ever.
How old are you? Do you remember the alternatives at the time?.... Win 3.1 was crap. Win 3.11 for Workgroups was where it was at.;)
Old enough. I used OS/2, with Win3.1 sometimes in a VM inside it.
Windows before NT 4.0 and XP [=NT 5.0] were all crap. Not with hindsight, I thought and said so at the time when others around me were saying "Gee-Whiz". Actually I run Win3.11 in a VM under Linux sometimes. It's still crap.
'The guy at the store' rarely knows what he is talking about. As him to show you the warranty text and point out where it says installing your own software voids it.
Agreed, but probably what he meant or should have said was that they don't guarantee the Linux (or any other software) that you install youself. That might seem a no-brainer statement to you and me, but from his point of view the vast majority of after-sales problems that shops are asked to deal with are software problems, and plenty of customers will demand that a shop solves problems, under guarantee, caused by software (and malware) they have installed themselves. So salesmen are touchy about that.
Like at work, I once asked my IT admin guy permission to install Linux instead of the corporate Windows. "But we cannot support it!" he said. I told him I did not want support, I'd sort things out myself. He just could into get his head round that idea, the idea that a user could possibly not need his support. I gather that most of my colleagues are running to him all the time for "support".
The idea that everyone wants one interface is a problem that does not exist, and is not looking for a solution.
Insensitive clod.
Why do you think I have fitted, at great trouble and expense, handlebars in my car instead of a steering wheel if not to make it feel like my bike? And right now I am using handlebars and pedals on my PC here instead of a mouse. I'd get confused otherwise; doesn't everyone?
If a website goes to the trouble of preventing ad blockers for such a tiny demographic, chances are high that I'm not interested in their "content" anyway
You are understating it. Chances are (actually certainty is) that I will be thoroughly pissed off by the "content" and it becomes the very last stuff that I would buy. Why can't the marketing droids realise this?
It's like a 50 page paperback road atlas I have, the cheap type. Like all atlases it has a small scale overview map for you to identify what page number you need to look at for the area of interest. Where should that overview map be? - on the back cover of course. But they sold the back cover to a well-known pressure-washer company for an advert. Instead the overview map is inside at about Page 6 after further adverts. Every time I use the atlas, and have to fumble through the inside pages to find the overview map, having instinctively glanced at the back cover first, I feel angry at the pressure washer company. I bought a pressure washer last year and deliberately avoided them because of it.
Another problem with print magazines is that they tend to consist mostly of advertisements. It makes you wonder what exactly you were paying for.
Not Linux magazines. In the case of Linux Format magazine there are just a few ads for cloud services and hosting. Consequently the mag is expensive - £6.49 a month, but there is a lot of editorial content.
There is no proof we have actually been domesticating cats as petting animals for more than a few hundred years.
The proof comes from ancient Egypt and (AFAIR) Mespotamia, where cat remains are found with collars round their necks. The collars cannot be for tethering as a tethered cat would be no use either for petting or hunting (ever tried tethering a cat?), the collars are for decoration and identifying ownership. Also, mummified cats are found in the tombs of kings, queens and other aristrocrats, who are unlikely to have concerned themselves with cats in the context of rat catching.
Not for 3/4 of the year (i.e. spring, summer or fall) it would not be. A lightbulb just generates waste heat most of the time. They also are pretty useless for heating when you want it to be dark at the same time as you are generating heat, like oh, when you want to sleep.
I don't have the lights on much in summer - or are you one of those people who never switch them off? I don't heat the house while I am in bed either - even Americans didn't once, as described so well in the unforgettable scene in Moby Dick when Ishmael first meets Queequeg.
... light bulb manufacturers have a disincentive to produce a product that doesn't need to be replaced for 7 years versus a product that needs to be replaced far more regularly. Am I missing something?
Yes. The fact that the manufacturers will soon fix the part about lasting 7 years. Shortening lives has happened with most other manufactured things:- cars, shoes, clothes (esp. ladies nylons, I'm told), computers, furniture, need I go on?
Slashdot Mirror
psychologists will frown upon any research where the subjects do not know they are part of a research project..
Why? I'd have thought the opposite in cases like this, because if the subjects were aware they could modify thier behaviour.
Actually, there are loads of psychological research done on unaware subjects. Just a random example : an architect watching how people negotiate a busy hotel lobby, so he can design better hotel lobbies in future.
FTFA :-
... the interface leverages the driver’s muscle memory"
"create innovative software experiences for these new input mechanisms"
"controls for air condition and infotainment"
"big, forgiving gestures that can be performed anywhere.
What a load of BS. Why do I need an "innovative software experience" when I am driving FFS? The very glossiness of his web page shows him up as a salesman. FAIL
A screen is essentially for looking at. You should not be looking at a screen while driving. I know my car controls - old-fashioned knobs and buttons - by feel.
This is also why the dasboard of a car and the dashboard of a jet fighter don't look the same...
Insensitive clod. I have gone to huge expense to have my jet fighter modified to have a gear lever and steering wheel. I was so confused before.
Who would have thought that this thread would turn into a flame war?
Hmm...
Flame war? On the contrary, I have never before seen a /. story where the comments are so much in agreement with each other. Even where pwnies himself has pitched in a couple of times he is basically in agreement with everyone else that the Metro interface is dumb and a failure.
That's [China Operating System] for mobile devices. I'm not sure that would be suitable for all uses.
Like Windows 8 you mean?
I had also assumed that COS was the way China was going. I didn't realise that Red Flag Linux was still around, it suprised me.
State funded companies are funded while it's interesting for the State that that company exists, and sorely abandoned in the exact millisecond that it's not interesting anymore.
Funny, I have always heard that as an "advantage" of capitalism - that investors would move their money elsewhere the moment it was no longer in their interest to keep it with a losing company. It is usually phrased in terms like "private capital is quick on its feet / nimble / flexible".
He lost to someone who spent much of their life practicing the game. That doesn't really mean anything.
No-one (except perhaps his closest worshippers) would have expected Gates to win. But 71 seconds ?? Surely most people who had played chess before could have held out that long.
My supper was red beans .... with rice, and hummus
With all the talk here about Soylent Green, I read that last item as "humans".
Anyway, your post gets today's Smugness award. It was a near thing, but your closing line clinched it.
this might work as an emergency ration, or perhaps a diet regimen, but I'm not seeing the attraction otherwise.
The attraction is seen by those futurists, politicians and economists (ie most of them) who's wet dream is an ever-increasing population (constantly supplying cheap labour from the bottom level) leading to a "paradise" in which we all live in a 50-storey structure of habitation cells (fed by piped Soylent), covering the entire face of the earth, with themselves at the top level in the luxury apartments. A bit like in Soylent Green but with the slums cleared away.
Paradoxically, this is also where the "Greens" and vegetarians would lead us, because most "Greens" are not actually interested in "greenery" and nature at all, but rather want the world to be turned into a renewable energy machine at any cost.
You don't have to replace your entire diet with Soylent.
Of course you don't. But then it ceases to be news, it's just another food alongside others.
But this is newsworthy because this guy is replacing his entire diet diet with this stuff, and recommending others do so too. That's serious (and scary).
FTFA : - "Chrome's extension auto-update mechanism silently pushed out the update "
Google need to disconnect their Chrome core update mechanism from the extension updates (unless ones of their own authorship). Of course, they cannot do anything about users accepting updates directly from independent extension writers.
Otherwise, Chrome is dead in the water.
I have been running xp machines WITHOUT ANY UPDATES for years and have not had any issues. First thing I do, shut off the updates
The bug was introduced in a Microsoft update some time ago. Turning off updates now does not stop the problem, I find. Nothing to do with viruses.
Many people running an "unauthorized" copy of XP turned off the automatic updates. No update requests, and no slowdowns.
My wife's PC has this problem, caused by a bug which I understand was introduced during an update. I turned off Automatic Updates, BUT that did not solve the problem - it was still disk-thrashing after every boot, and you have to stop SVCHOST via Task Manager or it goes on for ever.
i never had a problem with it for 8 years i used it.
I read that the bug was introduced about 6 months ago, not years, by a Windows update. And it does not seem to affect everybody, for some reason.
I actually want to pay the $100 to Microsoft to not have to constantly worry about shit breaking.
Yes, but the Microsoft shit did break. That is what this news item is about.
How old are you? Do you remember the alternatives at the time? .... Win 3.1 was crap. Win 3.11 for Workgroups was where it was at. ;)
Old enough. I used OS/2, with Win3.1 sometimes in a VM inside it.
Windows before NT 4.0 and XP [=NT 5.0] were all crap. Not with hindsight, I thought and said so at the time when others around me were saying "Gee-Whiz". Actually I run Win3.11 in a VM under Linux sometimes. It's still crap.
'The guy at the store' rarely knows what he is talking about. As him to show you the warranty text and point out where it says installing your own software voids it.
Agreed, but probably what he meant or should have said was that they don't guarantee the Linux (or any other software) that you install youself. That might seem a no-brainer statement to you and me, but from his point of view the vast majority of after-sales problems that shops are asked to deal with are software problems, and plenty of customers will demand that a shop solves problems, under guarantee, caused by software (and malware) they have installed themselves. So salesmen are touchy about that.
Like at work, I once asked my IT admin guy permission to install Linux instead of the corporate Windows. "But we cannot support it!" he said. I told him I did not want support, I'd sort things out myself. He just could into get his head round that idea, the idea that a user could possibly not need his support. I gather that most of my colleagues are running to him all the time for "support".
The idea that everyone wants one interface is a problem that does not exist, and is not looking for a solution.
Insensitive clod.
Why do you think I have fitted, at great trouble and expense, handlebars in my car instead of a steering wheel if not to make it feel like my bike? And right now I am using handlebars and pedals on my PC here instead of a mouse. I'd get confused otherwise; doesn't everyone?
Why would anyone ever pay for pr0n?
Some idiots do, like the one featured here :- Plumpy
Otherwise, there is enough free stuff to occupy anybody 24/7.
Why would anyone ever pay for an operating system?
If a website goes to the trouble of preventing ad blockers for such a tiny demographic, chances are high that I'm not interested in their "content" anyway
You are understating it. Chances are (actually certainty is) that I will be thoroughly pissed off by the "content" and it becomes the very last stuff that I would buy. Why can't the marketing droids realise this?
It's like a 50 page paperback road atlas I have, the cheap type. Like all atlases it has a small scale overview map for you to identify what page number you need to look at for the area of interest. Where should that overview map be? - on the back cover of course. But they sold the back cover to a well-known pressure-washer company for an advert. Instead the overview map is inside at about Page 6 after further adverts. Every time I use the atlas, and have to fumble through the inside pages to find the overview map, having instinctively glanced at the back cover first, I feel angry at the pressure washer company. I bought a pressure washer last year and deliberately avoided them because of it.
Another problem with print magazines is that they tend to consist mostly of advertisements. It makes you wonder what exactly you were paying for.
Not Linux magazines. In the case of Linux Format magazine there are just a few ads for cloud services and hosting. Consequently the mag is expensive - £6.49 a month, but there is a lot of editorial content.
There is no proof we have actually been domesticating cats as petting animals for more than a few hundred years.
The proof comes from ancient Egypt and (AFAIR) Mespotamia, where cat remains are found with collars round their necks. The collars cannot be for tethering as a tethered cat would be no use either for petting or hunting (ever tried tethering a cat?), the collars are for decoration and identifying ownership. Also, mummified cats are found in the tombs of kings, queens and other aristrocrats, who are unlikely to have concerned themselves with cats in the context of rat catching.
The lightbulb would be nearly 100% effective as a heat source, except the light that escapes through the windows.
Shut the curtains then :-)
Not for 3/4 of the year (i.e. spring, summer or fall) it would not be. A lightbulb just generates waste heat most of the time. They also are pretty useless for heating when you want it to be dark at the same time as you are generating heat, like oh, when you want to sleep.
I don't have the lights on much in summer - or are you one of those people who never switch them off? I don't heat the house while I am in bed either - even Americans didn't once, as described so well in the unforgettable scene in Moby Dick when Ishmael first meets Queequeg.
... light bulb manufacturers have a disincentive to produce a product that doesn't need to be replaced for 7 years versus a product that needs to be replaced far more regularly. Am I missing something?
Yes. The fact that the manufacturers will soon fix the part about lasting 7 years. Shortening lives has happened with most other manufactured things :- cars, shoes, clothes (esp. ladies nylons, I'm told), computers, furniture, need I go on?