Laws may be on our side. (Look to the gun laws fiasco going on now. Is it legal to own a gun? Even if that person is crazy? What does the 2nd amendment say about that? What about how the courts view theses laws?) The prosecutors and media and 99.9% of society are definitely not on our side even if you are 100% innocent.
It's a little harder to go surfing for that kind of stuff at Starbucks than at home. I'm assuming some sort of secure tunnel is used in either case, but I think you'd be arrested for checking that stuff in public at Starbucks. If they aren't using some sort of secure tunnel, then they'll be arrested either at home or at Starbucks even if it's scripted. At Starbucks, they'll see that someone was surfing for that kind of crap, check out to see who was there on the security cams and after a couple of times of this (even at different places), they'll know because they'll see the same face there.
Now, for an open wi-fi connection like what TFA is talking about, they police won't bother looking beyond the four walls of the house. It's too convenient to just nab someone there.
You should have seen the process we went through with my wife. (I'm American, she's German.) Lots of paperwork. Lots of money. Lots of waiting and nail biting. Lots of ridiculous things we're told to do. Despite going down the "easiest path", it was still ugly. We finally get her green card many years later. Fast forward a few more years and now she's complaining about not feeling welcome in America. It turns out Americans don't like foreigners -- and she blends in so well she's mistaken for an American quite often. She kind of got tired of hearing about how terrible foreigners were and how her kind were messing up our country and how she should be bowing down and worshiping us. I can't blame her. From my perspective, I can also say that Americans don't like other Americans either.
I suppose I'm trying to say that I agree with you, but it isn't just the education and immigration system. It's everything.
Why would you ever design a product that's completely and utterly dependent on a service provided by someone else
Yeah! Most IT people and companies don't ever use an operating system from Microsoft... oh, wait. Well, at least the places I work at don't use banks to direct deposit my paycheck... oh, wait. Well, at least all those important calls that go to my cell phone for business isn't... oh, wait. Well at least I program in C#, Java, and Oracle so my career isn't dependent upon... oh, wait.
It's a risk no matter which way you go. We all must trust someone or some company. We can't earn a decent living if we don't. It's just unfortunate that Microsoft and Apple and Facebook and PayPal (and the list goes on) don't mind kicking people in the nads often. There's just not a whole lot we can do about it. Now, with that said, it is wise that when they do kick someone in the nads, as the TFS suggests, people begin to shy away from them a bit more and it does weaken their position in the world. This guy was just trying to jostle for a position in the world in a nitch that he thought could be served. It's called free enterprise and he got kneed. Bummer for him.
Hell, Microsoft just told me less than two weeks ago that I can go screw myself as an independent programmer. Sucks for me to be into C#, but what are my alternatives? Businesses sometimes pay for C# programmers and I know C#. I also know Java, but Oracle has proven that it kicks just as hard. I can't just up and leave the programming world. I have to try to put food on the table.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
I saw your sig and thought "No, that can't be..." You see, I work for the Redundant Department of Redundancy. You don't think that maybe these two are related, do you?
...or... after the second year we should limit patent damage claims to a multiple of what the licensee was paying the patent office every year to maintain that patent. A patent which is earning you millions every year is worth paying $100,000 a year to maintain, right? 5% of the patent's value feels about right.
Hang on... that might actually work.
I've just fixed the system!
Not a bad idea, but I want to take it a few steps further. I think patents should work this way: once it's patented, then anyone (or any company) can license your patent at the same price. No special deals for anyone. (I don't have any great ideas on how to set price, but your suggestion obviously touches upon it.) It lasts for 10 years, then the patent enters free domain and anyone can use it after that for nothing -- it's free to use. If the patent office needs to skim a little off the top for the first 10 years to help pay for the processing, I don't see a problem doing that. Oh... and if you file a patent, there is a non-refundable processing fee. If that idea you have is already prior art or obvious, (whether it is in the free domain or not), you don't get that fee back. That should deter patent trolls from filing frivolous patents.
Mixing some aspects of your idea with mine is an interesting notion that I'll have to think about.
Oh... and since this article is talking talking about cell phones: you can buy pretty much any cell phone you like and pair it with pretty much any phone carrier you like. That's something you can't seem to do in the U.S. So much for "more freedom" in the U.S.
Why? Citizens in the US have more freedom than anywhere else on the planet.
I think it can be argued that Germany may have more freedoms than the U.S.A. Sure, you can find certain aspects where the U.S has more freedom, but I'll counter that with where Germany has more freedom.
Am I certain that Germany has more freedoms? No, but you can't be sure the U.S. has more either. It all depends on how much weight one gives specific freedoms in each country -- and that is subjective.
-- Signed by an American who just moved to Germany two months ago with his German wife.
The system is identical to Windows 7 only the boring "Start Menu" has been replaced by the "Start Screen" with "Live tiles". It's turned one of the drab features into something cool.
People trying to do real work don't need "cool".
They need fast, functional, and familiar.
I agree. During my down moments when I'm not trying to be productive, I might be happy to run an application that behaved like "live tiles" so I can set up news feeds and comics and silly little videos. It should be a fairly trivial app for Microsoft to write. When I'm trying to work, live tiles needs to just go away because I need to get things done and they certainly just get in the way.
At best, live tiles is an alternative to icons and menus. Something to be used as as supplement, not a replacement.
As a small time developer, I recently chatted Microsoft as I tried to figure out how to install a single copy of Windows 8 onto a virtual machine without spending €1000 / yr for MSDN. (You can't.) My next question was about how long Windows 7 was going to be sold for. I was told by more than one person at Microsoft that Windows 7 is no longer being produced and any copies still floating around is simply overstock by those companies selling software.
I wish, but they discarded Firefly. Some stuff makes it through. I just watched The Man From Earth[IMDB] and that is excellent science fiction, but nothing blows up in that movie.
Corporations are such a huge interference in the free market, I'm not sure the answer is to create something just as powerful that can counterbalance it. I think we might want to restrict what a corporation is a bit more.
There are a number of different things I can suggest to reduce interference. Limiting how much of a market a corporation can service is one. (Perhaps limiting it to a certain percentage of the population?) Restricting what a corporation is would be another great one. For instance, no corporation can donate money. At all. No charities. No politicians. Only individuals can do that.
I'll say this about hope: According to his 1040 forms, I'd say he's underpaid. He better hope his girlfriend doesn't find out. Speaking of his girlfriend, there are lots of interesting pics of her. I didn't know the human body could pretzel that way.
And explain to me why you decided that bigger icons on my desktop were a good idea, especially since most of the time I have these things you call 'windows' up and can't really see any of them when they are active so what's the purpose??
Dude, chill. It's retro therefore it's cool. Don't go on and on about being useful and productivity and work... blah blah blah. That is so last decade. I want colors that blind me from icons that I couldn't even find if I could see them. I mean, if it's good enough for Microsoft then it's good enough for me. If it's good enough for me, then you just need to suck it up. Why are you old geezers always thinking about yourselves? Can't you think about me for a change?
No, the purpose of the ribbon is to bring more functionality to within 2 clicks
What features exactly are harder to access?
Spoken like a true mouse user.;)
I'm a keyboard guy and the ribbon sucks. There is a visible delay when I access the keyboard as I navigate the ribbon. On top of that, there is a persistent bug where I sometimes have to hit the alt key a second time before the ribbon responds. (It happens when you alt-tab back into Word. For instance, if you want to copy from another program and paste into Word.) Doing anything by keyboard is now harder because you usually have to press more keys. Take pasting unformatted text. It used to be alt-e --> s --> enter if I recall. Now it's alt --> (maybe alt a second time) --> h --> v --> s --> (maybe s a second time because the ribbon changes). Ewww. There is no finger memory that I can use and the program can't keep up with me. I have to slow down and watch it respond before I hit my next key. Between hitting more keys and the delay it drives me nuts.
Want more? Let's suppose I'm trying to use keyboard to alter the way my page looks. (If they didn't want you to use a keyboard on the ribbon, why stick all those fancy letters on the screen when you hit the alt key, right?) How about landscaped with half inch borders all around, double spaced?
Remove spacing not tied to font size: alt --> (maybe alt a second time) --> p --> sa --> enter 0
Change to landscape: alt --> p --> o --> down arrow --> enter
Half inch border: alt --> p --> m --> arrow down who knows how many times --> enter
Double Space (which is tied to font size): alt --> p --> uhhhhh... now what?
The double space is not accessible directly in the ribbon. Now we have to go hunt for it. I'll cut to the chase:
alt --> p --> pg
That last series of keystrokes brings up a dialog box with all sorts of options including a lot of things found in the ribbon. As a matter of fact, it's almost like it was in Word 97. Now, we I can do a alt-n --> d --> enter --> enter to finish up. Had I decided to remove the 10 point spacing, I could have done it two keystrokes (instead of 4) and had instantaneous response from the dialogue box instead of the hesitation that the ribbon gives.
How about those hot keys? They used to be (sometimes) listed in the menu. A new user will never learn that Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V are hot keys for copy and paste. They might think all those ribbon keyboarding is great and do half a dozen to a dozen keystrokes instead of two. That hot key combination was shown right there in the menu. Even if I knew I was just going to do whatever it was over and over again for an hour and then never again, I could find out what that hot key was and save myself gobs of time.
I will admit that sometimes even the old menu didn't provide all the hot keys. Did you know that indentions could be done by Ctrl-M? How about indent everything but the first line: Ctrl-T. Want to undo it? Add a shift key into the mix. Works nice with bullets too.
Those features have been in Word for a long time, but buried in menus.
That would be known as a poorly designed menu. Microsoft Word had a poorly designed menu even before the ribbons. Having quality stuff buried multiple layers deep was one of several issues they had. Their menus were not perfect, but in my opinions, the ribbon is a piece of crap for a keyboard fanatic.
Let me ask this: What does a ribbon do that the old icons and menu system didn't do? Properly designed, I think menus and icons are better.
Slashdot Mirror
Laws may be on our side. (Look to the gun laws fiasco going on now. Is it legal to own a gun? Even if that person is crazy? What does the 2nd amendment say about that? What about how the courts view theses laws?) The prosecutors and media and 99.9% of society are definitely not on our side even if you are 100% innocent.
It's a little harder to go surfing for that kind of stuff at Starbucks than at home. I'm assuming some sort of secure tunnel is used in either case, but I think you'd be arrested for checking that stuff in public at Starbucks. If they aren't using some sort of secure tunnel, then they'll be arrested either at home or at Starbucks even if it's scripted. At Starbucks, they'll see that someone was surfing for that kind of crap, check out to see who was there on the security cams and after a couple of times of this (even at different places), they'll know because they'll see the same face there.
Now, for an open wi-fi connection like what TFA is talking about, they police won't bother looking beyond the four walls of the house. It's too convenient to just nab someone there.
You should have seen the process we went through with my wife. (I'm American, she's German.) Lots of paperwork. Lots of money. Lots of waiting and nail biting. Lots of ridiculous things we're told to do. Despite going down the "easiest path", it was still ugly. We finally get her green card many years later. Fast forward a few more years and now she's complaining about not feeling welcome in America. It turns out Americans don't like foreigners -- and she blends in so well she's mistaken for an American quite often. She kind of got tired of hearing about how terrible foreigners were and how her kind were messing up our country and how she should be bowing down and worshiping us. I can't blame her. From my perspective, I can also say that Americans don't like other Americans either.
I suppose I'm trying to say that I agree with you, but it isn't just the education and immigration system. It's everything.
Why would you ever design a product that's completely and utterly dependent on a service provided by someone else
Yeah! Most IT people and companies don't ever use an operating system from Microsoft... oh, wait. Well, at least the places I work at don't use banks to direct deposit my paycheck... oh, wait. Well, at least all those important calls that go to my cell phone for business isn't... oh, wait. Well at least I program in C#, Java, and Oracle so my career isn't dependent upon... oh, wait.
It's a risk no matter which way you go. We all must trust someone or some company. We can't earn a decent living if we don't. It's just unfortunate that Microsoft and Apple and Facebook and PayPal (and the list goes on) don't mind kicking people in the nads often. There's just not a whole lot we can do about it. Now, with that said, it is wise that when they do kick someone in the nads, as the TFS suggests, people begin to shy away from them a bit more and it does weaken their position in the world. This guy was just trying to jostle for a position in the world in a nitch that he thought could be served. It's called free enterprise and he got kneed. Bummer for him.
Hell, Microsoft just told me less than two weeks ago that I can go screw myself as an independent programmer. Sucks for me to be into C#, but what are my alternatives? Businesses sometimes pay for C# programmers and I know C#. I also know Java, but Oracle has proven that it kicks just as hard. I can't just up and leave the programming world. I have to try to put food on the table.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
I saw your sig and thought "No, that can't be..." You see, I work for the Redundant Department of Redundancy. You don't think that maybe these two are related, do you?
...or... after the second year we should limit patent damage claims to a multiple of what the licensee was paying the patent office every year to maintain that patent. A patent which is earning you millions every year is worth paying $100,000 a year to maintain, right? 5% of the patent's value feels about right.
Hang on... that might actually work.
I've just fixed the system!
Not a bad idea, but I want to take it a few steps further. I think patents should work this way: once it's patented, then anyone (or any company) can license your patent at the same price. No special deals for anyone. (I don't have any great ideas on how to set price, but your suggestion obviously touches upon it.) It lasts for 10 years, then the patent enters free domain and anyone can use it after that for nothing -- it's free to use. If the patent office needs to skim a little off the top for the first 10 years to help pay for the processing, I don't see a problem doing that. Oh... and if you file a patent, there is a non-refundable processing fee. If that idea you have is already prior art or obvious, (whether it is in the free domain or not), you don't get that fee back. That should deter patent trolls from filing frivolous patents.
Mixing some aspects of your idea with mine is an interesting notion that I'll have to think about.
Oh... and since this article is talking talking about cell phones: you can buy pretty much any cell phone you like and pair it with pretty much any phone carrier you like. That's something you can't seem to do in the U.S. So much for "more freedom" in the U.S.
Why? Citizens in the US have more freedom than anywhere else on the planet.
I think it can be argued that Germany may have more freedoms than the U.S.A. Sure, you can find certain aspects where the U.S has more freedom, but I'll counter that with where Germany has more freedom.
Am I certain that Germany has more freedoms? No, but you can't be sure the U.S. has more either. It all depends on how much weight one gives specific freedoms in each country -- and that is subjective.
-- Signed by an American who just moved to Germany two months ago with his German wife.
The system is identical to Windows 7 only the boring "Start Menu" has been replaced by the "Start Screen" with "Live tiles". It's turned one of the drab features into something cool.
People trying to do real work don't need "cool".
They need fast, functional, and familiar.
I agree. During my down moments when I'm not trying to be productive, I might be happy to run an application that behaved like "live tiles" so I can set up news feeds and comics and silly little videos. It should be a fairly trivial app for Microsoft to write. When I'm trying to work, live tiles needs to just go away because I need to get things done and they certainly just get in the way.
At best, live tiles is an alternative to icons and menus. Something to be used as as supplement, not a replacement.
As a small time developer, I recently chatted Microsoft as I tried to figure out how to install a single copy of Windows 8 onto a virtual machine without spending €1000 / yr for MSDN. (You can't.) My next question was about how long Windows 7 was going to be sold for. I was told by more than one person at Microsoft that Windows 7 is no longer being produced and any copies still floating around is simply overstock by those companies selling software.
I wish, but they discarded Firefly. Some stuff makes it through. I just watched The Man From Earth[IMDB] and that is excellent science fiction, but nothing blows up in that movie.
Corporations are such a huge interference in the free market, I'm not sure the answer is to create something just as powerful that can counterbalance it. I think we might want to restrict what a corporation is a bit more.
There are a number of different things I can suggest to reduce interference. Limiting how much of a market a corporation can service is one. (Perhaps limiting it to a certain percentage of the population?) Restricting what a corporation is would be another great one. For instance, no corporation can donate money. At all. No charities. No politicians. Only individuals can do that.
These are a couple of my suggestions.
Uh, yeah... Did you get the memo about the new TPS Report cover sheet?
I'll say this about hope: According to his 1040 forms, I'd say he's underpaid. He better hope his girlfriend doesn't find out. Speaking of his girlfriend, there are lots of interesting pics of her. I didn't know the human body could pretzel that way.
And explain to me why you decided that bigger icons on my desktop were a good idea, especially since most of the time I have these things you call 'windows' up and can't really see any of them when they are active so what's the purpose??
Dude, chill. It's retro therefore it's cool. Don't go on and on about being useful and productivity and work... blah blah blah. That is so last decade. I want colors that blind me from icons that I couldn't even find if I could see them. I mean, if it's good enough for Microsoft then it's good enough for me. If it's good enough for me, then you just need to suck it up. Why are you old geezers always thinking about yourselves? Can't you think about me for a change?
No, the purpose of the ribbon is to bring more functionality to within 2 clicks
What features exactly are harder to access?
Spoken like a true mouse user. ;)
I'm a keyboard guy and the ribbon sucks. There is a visible delay when I access the keyboard as I navigate the ribbon. On top of that, there is a persistent bug where I sometimes have to hit the alt key a second time before the ribbon responds. (It happens when you alt-tab back into Word. For instance, if you want to copy from another program and paste into Word.) Doing anything by keyboard is now harder because you usually have to press more keys. Take pasting unformatted text. It used to be alt-e --> s --> enter if I recall. Now it's alt --> (maybe alt a second time) --> h --> v --> s --> (maybe s a second time because the ribbon changes). Ewww. There is no finger memory that I can use and the program can't keep up with me. I have to slow down and watch it respond before I hit my next key. Between hitting more keys and the delay it drives me nuts.
Want more? Let's suppose I'm trying to use keyboard to alter the way my page looks. (If they didn't want you to use a keyboard on the ribbon, why stick all those fancy letters on the screen when you hit the alt key, right?) How about landscaped with half inch borders all around, double spaced?
Remove spacing not tied to font size: alt --> (maybe alt a second time) --> p --> sa --> enter 0
Change to landscape: alt --> p --> o --> down arrow --> enter
Half inch border: alt --> p --> m --> arrow down who knows how many times --> enter
Double Space (which is tied to font size): alt --> p --> uhhhhh... now what?
The double space is not accessible directly in the ribbon. Now we have to go hunt for it. I'll cut to the chase:
alt --> p --> pg
That last series of keystrokes brings up a dialog box with all sorts of options including a lot of things found in the ribbon. As a matter of fact, it's almost like it was in Word 97. Now, we I can do a alt-n --> d --> enter --> enter to finish up. Had I decided to remove the 10 point spacing, I could have done it two keystrokes (instead of 4) and had instantaneous response from the dialogue box instead of the hesitation that the ribbon gives.
How about those hot keys? They used to be (sometimes) listed in the menu. A new user will never learn that Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V are hot keys for copy and paste. They might think all those ribbon keyboarding is great and do half a dozen to a dozen keystrokes instead of two. That hot key combination was shown right there in the menu. Even if I knew I was just going to do whatever it was over and over again for an hour and then never again, I could find out what that hot key was and save myself gobs of time.
I will admit that sometimes even the old menu didn't provide all the hot keys. Did you know that indentions could be done by Ctrl-M? How about indent everything but the first line: Ctrl-T. Want to undo it? Add a shift key into the mix. Works nice with bullets too.
Those features have been in Word for a long time, but buried in menus.
That would be known as a poorly designed menu. Microsoft Word had a poorly designed menu even before the ribbons. Having quality stuff buried multiple layers deep was one of several issues they had. Their menus were not perfect, but in my opinions, the ribbon is a piece of crap for a keyboard fanatic.
Let me ask this: What does a ribbon do that the old icons and menu system didn't do? Properly designed, I think menus and icons are better.