I would suspect that the tech savvy will have more trouble with the new interface simply because there is so much for us to relearn about it.
I doubt this. I'm not as savvy as many people here, but in the course of my life I've must have learned around 100 different GUI/UI schemes. Tech savvy people learn about the conventions and metaphors of UI, the universal bits, while non-savvy people learn the specific bits (click this, for this to happen). I don't have a problem with learning new UIs anymore. Sure, there is a learning curve, and my productivity suffers for a week or two, but generally I haven't found a UI I couldn't use after a bit. This isn't saying I enjoy using some of them, but I can learn them easily since I have tons of experience with tons of different UIs.
To a nerd, the only difference is graphics, placement, and flow, as the underlying systems are generally the same. To someone like my parents a misplaced icon makes their computer unable.
As for Windows 8, I actually think it is a superior mobile interface to its competitors. I really like it, and I love its aesthetics. I would have picked it up when I got my last phone, but for the lack of apps and development. I also am pretty locked in to Google, and don't want to have to repurchase things to duplicate functionality. I also don't trust MS in the mobile market yet. On the desktop... Ugh. Hidden elements are bad, as you stated, as is the touch/tablet scheme. Even if I had a touch screen desktop, I would hate it, since using it would be less than comfortable. And I'm really not keen on cleaning my monitor once a day, like I do with tablets and phone. The conventions don't translate well. They should note that iOS and OS X are different looking still, even if they are merging into a single OS over time (both in underpinnings and in function). Different forms require different conventions.
Though if there ever was a Kinect for desktops (supported, not hacked) that worked with Win 8, I'd probably give it a shot. I have an odd feeling that this is what they had in mind, but for some reason couldn't actually bring to market in time, so just steamed ahead in the typical MS style.
The only place in my house where Win 8 is going, is to my HTPC.
We spent half a month setting up a demo system with a Windows 8 laptop, and our engineers had a lot of trouble locating simple things like the Control Panel. It wasn't nearly that difficult for us to learn Mac OS or Android or iOS.
This isn't hard to believe. To MS's credit, they are trying something almost completely new. They are trying to create new conventions, instead of just modifying old ones. Win 95 is pretty much Win 7, at least from a GUI perspective. Win 8 completely breaks that tradition, so it screws with our inner "this is Windows, this is how it works) schema. They would probably have an easier time if Win 8 was a completely new product, not tied to an existing line, or history.
Anyway, I can understand what you're saying about how powerful Google is and how difficult it is to be truly anonymous now. How much information you can glean about someone is scary. I have a friend who fell in love with a girl he met casually. he only knew her name but with google he was able to find out so much and it wasn't long before he was following her on facebook, on pinterest etc. While it was fairly innocent, I mean, he wasn't doing anything bad (he wasn't stalking her), it was illuminating and frightening to see what it's like now. When I was a kid things were nothing like this. Things continue to evolve in unexpected directions.
This is another thing... People are much less adverse to sharing now, at least in the younger generations. When I was young, and the Web new and full of pretty much no-one but nerds, everyone I knew strove of pseudo-anonymity, and tried to keep a divide between their "real world" self, and their "online" self. Now, psychologically, it seems that that divide has lifted, and the internet is as real as your actual life (until things go wrong, obviously), so people are much freer with sharing their personal details. Back when "social networking" became the thing to do, I had a few accounts under various pseudonyms, and I valued those identities almost like my real one (I've been using this one for over 15 years now, for example), since they accrued recognition, and credibility just like if I was using my real name in real circumstances. But now I, too, am using my real name on places like Facebook and Google+. There came a point where there was no point resisting. I still keep a wall up, though, since I recognize that everything I ever say will be around forever, and can be potentially accessed by anyone.Most people I know don't even bother anymore.
It amazes me what people will say on Facebook, publicly.
I saw no big outrage while they confined their activities to being ass-hats at military funerals.
There was. No one has ever liked them, even when they protested military funerals, even when our country was trying to pillory each other over Bush and his wars. I hated the wars, but I never disliked our troops, was always sad to see them as casualties, and always pissed off that these assholes hurt the families of the diseased during the worst time in their life, just to spread bile and hatred.
And by the way, it irks me to no end how much people care about hate.
Tell me that after these idiots show up to your murdered child's funeral, or the funeral of your loved one who died in action.
The government didn't do anything, therefore it isn't a Constitutional issue. The Constitution has nothing whatsoever to do with this story. Yes, Anon broke a law, but again, it had nothing to do with the First Amendment. This is basically like me walking up and punching one of them in the face, sure it is illegal, but it still isn't a Constitutional issue. Free Speech also covers me, a private citizen, telling you to shut up. I'm also allowed to kick you out of my house, fire you, ostracize you, mock you, ridicule you, send quotes to your employer and your friends and family, publish it online or in print... etc...
Speech is a right, but without responsibility you must also accept the (non-governmental) consequences. No problem there.
And if I ran into whoever did this, they definitely wouldn't have to buy beer for the evening.
I'm not even sure of this anymore. I'm beginning to think the death of anonymity is inevitable due to nothing but technology; ubiquitous networking, computing power, and near infinite storage. Even without the government, and unregulated corporate behaviors (how else do you stop data farming?), the ability would still be there, and someone would harness it.
I'm not supporting killing the ability to be anonymous, or supporting the actions of people who would exploit it. I just think that it is going to get increasingly hard to maintain it. Soon we'll see anonymity like we see encryption, not a concrete, perfect, thing, but a matter of degrees. There will be no true anoniminity, but only how much time and resources it would take to unmask people. This, probably, is already true. A determined person, with expensive resources, could probably find almost anyone.
Hell, a couple months ago I got curious about a childhood friend, someone I haven't seen or talked to in over 20 years. It took about 15 minutes of half-hearted idle searching before I figured out where he lived, how much his house cost, and when he bought it (including a recent Google map of it, and a builders layout, where he worked, his rough income, the car he drives, his wife's name, where her parents live, that his mother recently died, and his father is in a retirement home, etc... I gave up after 15 minutes because I got a bit creeped out. I'm not a PI, I didn't buy any tools for this, I only used Google. I can't even imagine what I would have found if I spent more time, and effort, and money on it.
Which is pointless if your actual writing can give you away. No amount of Tor/VPN or whatever, will do anything useful if your actual writing itself can lead back to you. If I use every anonymity trick in the book, the gig is still up the second I say "Hi, I'm Bob Smith, of 6424 N. 22nd Street, Akron OH".
Sure, you could make a magical anonymous internet, but it defeats the purpose of trying to disseminate whatever your writing to an audience, unless your only going for a very small, select audience of people using the same scheme. And even then, if others could access it, you still might not be anonymous.
I don't know, it seems Google+ is slowly replacing it, a lot of my photography friends have either ditched Flickr, or haven't touched it in months now. There are also better services out there, like Smugmug (also might be suffering a bit), and 500px. Yahoo has pretty much forgotten about Flickr, and they really don't garner much confidence. When was the last time Yahoo really saved, or improved, something? Hell, when was the last time anything of relevance was connected to Yahoo?
I used to use Flickr a lot, my hobby was colorizing and restoring old images, and I managed to find some good communities there full of people with like interests, and more experience, willing to help me and critique my work. Lately, since venturing into macro photography, I was looking for a like experience. Flickr didn't really fit, it seemed more Instagram-y now, Facebook-y even. Lots of "Wow!", and "Great Job!", and very little "Good, but your framing is a bit off", "Good framing, but you need more/less light/exposure" Useful, and meaningful criticism, not just empty social blurbs and group ego massaging. Flickr feels like a dying community, not like it was a few years back.
The serious people, who want a good UI, and better templates have moved on to 500px. The people who want community first, and a good UI and display, have move to G+. The casual crowd has moved on to Facebook. Why niche does Flickr fill, that these other sites can do better?
Does this solve the problem for all installed software on Windows?
No. But it works on enough. Remember that this isn't about you or me, or us nerds, this is about an older guy who isn't big on computers. He probably doesn't have a/several TB HDDs full of stuff. My Biweekly update fest is annoying, but I have it down rather well. FileHippo gets around 50% of my installed software, another bunch is old and doesn't update (or has built in updating), leaving around 6 or seven programs I have to manually update. If he is using popular software, he probably won't have to update much of anything by hand. Windows takes care of all MS apps, Filehippo takes care of most popular software, and everything else takes care of itself.
If he is anything like my own father, his biggest problem is relatives installing crap, and teaching him basic security (don't install crap from sources that seem dubious, don't click on links that seem dubious, treat installing software like answering your door). I've been trying this for around 10 years now, and I admit I haven't had any success. Especially the former, of late. Every single kid/stepchild/grandchild who comes over now treats his computer like their own, which basically means that even if I trained my dad, I have to deal with the bad habits of everyone else. It is worse since he now runs a rather lucrative business, and keeps tons of information on his computer, or in places where his computer has quick access. Sure, I could talk him through accounts and security, but it would be about as useful as trying to teach him to macrame, in Klingon.
Hell, one of the kids (ex-husband of his wife's daughter) decided to fix some internet problems by opening up their wifi, no password, no nothing. He used to work for Cox, so obviously he is more trusted than me, whose only been working on computers for 30 years, and only set up their whole network, and all their systems. Not that I can't understand where he was coming from, my dad has a completely different password for EVERYTHING, but all of them are variations of the same four things (dog name, his birthday, his wife's birthday, and their anniversary) (try poopsie3445, no? try 4534poopsie, no? try 121792poopsie? try p00psie1217344592, no?).
I am boggled at how fast it replaced Flickr (and other like services) among the photography community. Most serious online photographers pan G+ rather passionately. But still, not a single on of my real-life friends actually use the service, one or two tried in the first month or so, but it depopulated rather quickly. I've ended up using it as a Twitter clone (or by my reckoning, I've never used Twitter, and genuinely "don't get it"), following popular/famous nerds and techies. It does make me sad, since G+ is almost infinitely better than Facebook, and makes me happier to use (better policies, better UI, nicer settings, doesn't censor posts hoping that I give them $1000 so all my "friends" can see what I post.)
I'm sure I'm not helping either, I haven't posted anything there, except photos, in months. And I barely ever contribute to discussions since it does have the Twitter problem of being mostly hoi polloi like me following famous people, thus the discussion is generally a bunch of fawning, content free, "you're so clever!", "OMG I get to communicate with famous people!", bullshit.
Most of it is expectations, we expect 24fps, and associate it with movies, where we associate 48fps with trashy TV. The only real difference I can see involves light. You need more lighting for 48fps (faster rate = less shutter = more light), which could effect the aethetics. I've heard people say the Hobbit looks "plasticy", and this could be related to different set lighting than we are used to.
They probably are, but they're not as funny, and they aren't commenting on the UN treaty about disabled people in that article.
But what does a UN treaty about disabled people have to do with the topic, a UN treaty about the internet? For that I'll listen to Vint Cerf and Tim Berners-Lee, as they probably know a thing or two about the internet.
So you're saying we should sign this treaty then? Why?
Which might be true or false, but doesn't really have a thing to do with TFA. Further, the US not signing this one is a good thing. And if the US signed it, and didn't honor it, I wouldn't have much of a problem with that either.
Do you have anything to back up your claim that we're not signing this because some deep character fault of the US rather than the fact that it is a very bad treaty which erodes freedom and rights, and puts control of the internet directly in control of states with a deep tyranny streak? Lacking any evidence, this becomes a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation, which leads me to wonder if your just trying to find faults for the sake of maintaining a pre-existing bias.
Would you rather that the US ratified this treaty, just to make it clear that they lay no claim to the internet?
Yes, the US has some deep faults, and have done some deeply disturbing things in the past (not-so-recent and recent), but they aren't all bad. Also, government is an immensely complex beast, thus it is hard to characterize isn't a single bile soaked ideology. Perhaps there are voices in the government leading to this decision for the "right" reasons? How could one ever prove this either way?
I have. But I still can pine for the "glory days", I suppose. Where is the joy in getting old if I can't complain about everything going down hill? Seriously, things were better in the days of BBSs. I don't know if I've just aged, and my interests are different now, and I allocate my time differently, or if things have actually degraded. Well, I'm pretty sure/. has, but rather things as a whole.
As for the politics things... I'm not sure if the internet changed them, or if what is going on can actually be called politics anymore. Politics generally involved some form of discussion, or actual view point. It seems to be more defined by the negation of a view these days (Your not me, and thus don't hold my exact views; therefore you are an unthinking, evil, enemy type. Why do you hate freedom?). It has, though, completely killed this site for me. I want to read about stupid science and tech stories, if I wanted pseudo-political handwaving I'd be at Salon.com.
Drowning in smug yet, I hear its a bigger threat than even global warming.
Or you can take a nice happy medium, and have comfort and convenience, but be mindful of efficiency and conservation. I suppose I'd have to give up some of that feeling of moral superiority by taking the middle route, but I'm okay with that. Hell, my home theater set up draws less power than our high efficiency washer/dryer, and costs less a year to run. Actually our home theater set up probably costs less than anything else in our house, and all of our appliances, and A/C are new, high efficiency models.
I kind of doubt it. I hardly see any of the old people anymore, and most comments are by people with 7 digit UIDs, and the quality has suffered pretty greatly (both in stories, and in comments). Hell, I used to have Slashdot as my homepage, and checked it many times a day. Now, I might visit once a week, and probably won't bother commenting, since I'm sure someone will call me a commie, or a "rethuglican" or something equally puerile. Even if the topic has nothing to do with politics (don't like the new kernel, Obama-voting fascist scum!"
There are only two reason to boot into Windows - Office, and gaming. Office is a legacy issue - my professors are now using iPads and other devices which don't speak "native" office and I suspect sending them ODFs would lead to less "your formatting is all broken" problems.
I need my Photoshop and Lightroom, right now, on top of gaming, they are whats keeping me in Windows-land. The Gimp isn't close, and I don't feel like futzing with VM or Wine. Actually, this is what keeps me from Linux right now, in general. My last install (earlier this year, with Ubuntu, Mint, and Suse) still required a fair amount of futzing, customizing, and searching out documentation. I don't feel like doing that anymore, especially when it gets in the way of me doing the stuff I want, or need, to do.
Linux has comes leaps and bounds since I started my yearly test ritual (around 1998, or so), but it still hasn't got to the point where it is as usable and friendly as OS X or Windows. Before I get attacked; I really want to like Linux, and there are features in it I'd love to have (a modern FS, repos, a bit more control over my hardware. I also love the FOSS model. Take that fanboys, you've been defused!
, nor likely would the steam users buy the console.
Odd, everyone I know who uses Steam owns a console. If one of the Big Three makes a console that interests me, with features that make games of the genres I like (RPG, RTS, 4x, and shooters that don't involve knee high walls) more interesting, I'd buy it. I'm even watching the Wii U closely, since was awesome for parties, and their is some interesting possibilities with the slaved screen (better battery life, and I'd probably buy it in a second).
True, though, most people I know who own consoles don't use Steam, or even own PCs anymore.
How so? I'm not going to radically change how I use my computer just so I can use Steam. I'm still not going to install Linux, just because Steam moves over there. (Or at least until using Linux as a smooth and flawless, and relatively stress free as Windows 7 or OS X whatever stupid cat their on now, which according to my yearly check, it isn't). If all gamers jumped ship, MS would still make money since companies still want Windows, my parents still want Windows, and OEMs will still sell Windows. Hell, if Steam moved to Linux exclusively, I would still run Windows 7 (and maybe 9 if the trend holds), but I'd just use another box, or dual boot.
I actually do other things on my computer than just play games. Games might be 15-20% of the total time I actually spend sitting at my PC, the rest is work, or other forms of entertainment. The stuff I do that I consider "work" is more important than the whims of Valve, and my choice in OS and platform depend more on that than on Steam.
Microsoft is safe. But Valve is right to worry, if MS tries to cash in on the "App store" idiocy it could hurt them.
It might be real for some people (I don't doubt it), but where was it 30 years ago? It also is a bit of a fad, diagnostically, right now. I had several friends in college with very selective wheat allergies, they'd buy gluten free whatnot (at a premium, from a botique), then eat pasta and drink a hefeweizen at the local pub.
He said he "never heard of it as a kid", so I rather doubt he was a kid before ambulances, trauma centers, and CPR. Unless he is very, very, old indeed. Cellphones don't matter, long ago pay phones ruled the Earth, and most of them had free 911/emergency calls.
Hell, as a known quantity, I was a kid a mere 30-odd years ago, and I didn't know anyone allergic to peanuts, much less the silly "wheat allergy" thing that is so popular now.
It probably has less to do with technology and emergency services, than with novel environmental factors, and a differing diagnostic threshold.
Slashdot Mirror
I would suspect that the tech savvy will have more trouble with the new interface simply because there is so much for us to relearn about it.
I doubt this. I'm not as savvy as many people here, but in the course of my life I've must have learned around 100 different GUI/UI schemes. Tech savvy people learn about the conventions and metaphors of UI, the universal bits, while non-savvy people learn the specific bits (click this, for this to happen). I don't have a problem with learning new UIs anymore. Sure, there is a learning curve, and my productivity suffers for a week or two, but generally I haven't found a UI I couldn't use after a bit. This isn't saying I enjoy using some of them, but I can learn them easily since I have tons of experience with tons of different UIs.
To a nerd, the only difference is graphics, placement, and flow, as the underlying systems are generally the same. To someone like my parents a misplaced icon makes their computer unable.
As for Windows 8, I actually think it is a superior mobile interface to its competitors. I really like it, and I love its aesthetics. I would have picked it up when I got my last phone, but for the lack of apps and development. I also am pretty locked in to Google, and don't want to have to repurchase things to duplicate functionality. I also don't trust MS in the mobile market yet. On the desktop... Ugh. Hidden elements are bad, as you stated, as is the touch/tablet scheme. Even if I had a touch screen desktop, I would hate it, since using it would be less than comfortable. And I'm really not keen on cleaning my monitor once a day, like I do with tablets and phone. The conventions don't translate well. They should note that iOS and OS X are different looking still, even if they are merging into a single OS over time (both in underpinnings and in function). Different forms require different conventions.
Though if there ever was a Kinect for desktops (supported, not hacked) that worked with Win 8, I'd probably give it a shot. I have an odd feeling that this is what they had in mind, but for some reason couldn't actually bring to market in time, so just steamed ahead in the typical MS style.
The only place in my house where Win 8 is going, is to my HTPC.
We spent half a month setting up a demo system with a Windows 8 laptop, and our engineers had a lot of trouble locating simple things like the Control Panel. It wasn't nearly that difficult for us to learn Mac OS or Android or iOS.
This isn't hard to believe. To MS's credit, they are trying something almost completely new. They are trying to create new conventions, instead of just modifying old ones. Win 95 is pretty much Win 7, at least from a GUI perspective. Win 8 completely breaks that tradition, so it screws with our inner "this is Windows, this is how it works) schema. They would probably have an easier time if Win 8 was a completely new product, not tied to an existing line, or history.
Either/or? 1912 is coming, stock up on vitamin C and chicken soup.
Anyway, I can understand what you're saying about how powerful Google is and how difficult it is to be truly anonymous now. How much information you can glean about someone is scary. I have a friend who fell in love with a girl he met casually. he only knew her name but with google he was able to find out so much and it wasn't long before he was following her on facebook, on pinterest etc. While it was fairly innocent, I mean, he wasn't doing anything bad (he wasn't stalking her), it was illuminating and frightening to see what it's like now. When I was a kid things were nothing like this. Things continue to evolve in unexpected directions.
This is another thing... People are much less adverse to sharing now, at least in the younger generations. When I was young, and the Web new and full of pretty much no-one but nerds, everyone I knew strove of pseudo-anonymity, and tried to keep a divide between their "real world" self, and their "online" self. Now, psychologically, it seems that that divide has lifted, and the internet is as real as your actual life (until things go wrong, obviously), so people are much freer with sharing their personal details. Back when "social networking" became the thing to do, I had a few accounts under various pseudonyms, and I valued those identities almost like my real one (I've been using this one for over 15 years now, for example), since they accrued recognition, and credibility just like if I was using my real name in real circumstances. But now I, too, am using my real name on places like Facebook and Google+. There came a point where there was no point resisting. I still keep a wall up, though, since I recognize that everything I ever say will be around forever, and can be potentially accessed by anyone.Most people I know don't even bother anymore.
It amazes me what people will say on Facebook, publicly.
I saw no big outrage while they confined their activities to being ass-hats at military funerals.
There was. No one has ever liked them, even when they protested military funerals, even when our country was trying to pillory each other over Bush and his wars. I hated the wars, but I never disliked our troops, was always sad to see them as casualties, and always pissed off that these assholes hurt the families of the diseased during the worst time in their life, just to spread bile and hatred.
And by the way, it irks me to no end how much people care about hate.
Tell me that after these idiots show up to your murdered child's funeral, or the funeral of your loved one who died in action.
The government didn't do anything, therefore it isn't a Constitutional issue. The Constitution has nothing whatsoever to do with this story. Yes, Anon broke a law, but again, it had nothing to do with the First Amendment. This is basically like me walking up and punching one of them in the face, sure it is illegal, but it still isn't a Constitutional issue. Free Speech also covers me, a private citizen, telling you to shut up. I'm also allowed to kick you out of my house, fire you, ostracize you, mock you, ridicule you, send quotes to your employer and your friends and family, publish it online or in print... etc...
Speech is a right, but without responsibility you must also accept the (non-governmental) consequences. No problem there.
And if I ran into whoever did this, they definitely wouldn't have to buy beer for the evening.
AKA Spartacus, or AKA John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt? If the later, that is my name too.
n a world that growing abhors common anonymity...
I'm not even sure of this anymore. I'm beginning to think the death of anonymity is inevitable due to nothing but technology; ubiquitous networking, computing power, and near infinite storage. Even without the government, and unregulated corporate behaviors (how else do you stop data farming?), the ability would still be there, and someone would harness it.
I'm not supporting killing the ability to be anonymous, or supporting the actions of people who would exploit it. I just think that it is going to get increasingly hard to maintain it. Soon we'll see anonymity like we see encryption, not a concrete, perfect, thing, but a matter of degrees. There will be no true anoniminity, but only how much time and resources it would take to unmask people. This, probably, is already true. A determined person, with expensive resources, could probably find almost anyone.
Hell, a couple months ago I got curious about a childhood friend, someone I haven't seen or talked to in over 20 years. It took about 15 minutes of half-hearted idle searching before I figured out where he lived, how much his house cost, and when he bought it (including a recent Google map of it, and a builders layout, where he worked, his rough income, the car he drives, his wife's name, where her parents live, that his mother recently died, and his father is in a retirement home, etc... I gave up after 15 minutes because I got a bit creeped out. I'm not a PI, I didn't buy any tools for this, I only used Google. I can't even imagine what I would have found if I spent more time, and effort, and money on it.
Which is pointless if your actual writing can give you away. No amount of Tor/VPN or whatever, will do anything useful if your actual writing itself can lead back to you. If I use every anonymity trick in the book, the gig is still up the second I say "Hi, I'm Bob Smith, of 6424 N. 22nd Street, Akron OH".
Sure, you could make a magical anonymous internet, but it defeats the purpose of trying to disseminate whatever your writing to an audience, unless your only going for a very small, select audience of people using the same scheme. And even then, if others could access it, you still might not be anonymous.
I don't know, it seems Google+ is slowly replacing it, a lot of my photography friends have either ditched Flickr, or haven't touched it in months now. There are also better services out there, like Smugmug (also might be suffering a bit), and 500px. Yahoo has pretty much forgotten about Flickr, and they really don't garner much confidence. When was the last time Yahoo really saved, or improved, something? Hell, when was the last time anything of relevance was connected to Yahoo?
I used to use Flickr a lot, my hobby was colorizing and restoring old images, and I managed to find some good communities there full of people with like interests, and more experience, willing to help me and critique my work. Lately, since venturing into macro photography, I was looking for a like experience. Flickr didn't really fit, it seemed more Instagram-y now, Facebook-y even. Lots of "Wow!", and "Great Job!", and very little "Good, but your framing is a bit off", "Good framing, but you need more/less light/exposure" Useful, and meaningful criticism, not just empty social blurbs and group ego massaging. Flickr feels like a dying community, not like it was a few years back.
The serious people, who want a good UI, and better templates have moved on to 500px. The people who want community first, and a good UI and display, have move to G+. The casual crowd has moved on to Facebook. Why niche does Flickr fill, that these other sites can do better?
Does this solve the problem for all installed software on Windows?
No. But it works on enough. Remember that this isn't about you or me, or us nerds, this is about an older guy who isn't big on computers. He probably doesn't have a/several TB HDDs full of stuff. My Biweekly update fest is annoying, but I have it down rather well. FileHippo gets around 50% of my installed software, another bunch is old and doesn't update (or has built in updating), leaving around 6 or seven programs I have to manually update. If he is using popular software, he probably won't have to update much of anything by hand. Windows takes care of all MS apps, Filehippo takes care of most popular software, and everything else takes care of itself.
If he is anything like my own father, his biggest problem is relatives installing crap, and teaching him basic security (don't install crap from sources that seem dubious, don't click on links that seem dubious, treat installing software like answering your door). I've been trying this for around 10 years now, and I admit I haven't had any success. Especially the former, of late. Every single kid/stepchild/grandchild who comes over now treats his computer like their own, which basically means that even if I trained my dad, I have to deal with the bad habits of everyone else. It is worse since he now runs a rather lucrative business, and keeps tons of information on his computer, or in places where his computer has quick access. Sure, I could talk him through accounts and security, but it would be about as useful as trying to teach him to macrame, in Klingon.
Hell, one of the kids (ex-husband of his wife's daughter) decided to fix some internet problems by opening up their wifi, no password, no nothing. He used to work for Cox, so obviously he is more trusted than me, whose only been working on computers for 30 years, and only set up their whole network, and all their systems. Not that I can't understand where he was coming from, my dad has a completely different password for EVERYTHING, but all of them are variations of the same four things (dog name, his birthday, his wife's birthday, and their anniversary) (try poopsie3445, no? try 4534poopsie, no? try 121792poopsie? try p00psie1217344592, no?).
I am boggled at how fast it replaced Flickr (and other like services) among the photography community. Most serious online photographers pan G+ rather passionately. But still, not a single on of my real-life friends actually use the service, one or two tried in the first month or so, but it depopulated rather quickly. I've ended up using it as a Twitter clone (or by my reckoning, I've never used Twitter, and genuinely "don't get it"), following popular/famous nerds and techies. It does make me sad, since G+ is almost infinitely better than Facebook, and makes me happier to use (better policies, better UI, nicer settings, doesn't censor posts hoping that I give them $1000 so all my "friends" can see what I post.)
I'm sure I'm not helping either, I haven't posted anything there, except photos, in months. And I barely ever contribute to discussions since it does have the Twitter problem of being mostly hoi polloi like me following famous people, thus the discussion is generally a bunch of fawning, content free, "you're so clever!", "OMG I get to communicate with famous people!", bullshit.
Most of it is expectations, we expect 24fps, and associate it with movies, where we associate 48fps with trashy TV. The only real difference I can see involves light. You need more lighting for 48fps (faster rate = less shutter = more light), which could effect the aethetics. I've heard people say the Hobbit looks "plasticy", and this could be related to different set lighting than we are used to.
I wasn't discussing the pros or cons of the treaty, but rather that it doesn't matter whether we sign it or not.
So a valid mod would been "-1 Off-Topic", then?
They probably are, but they're not as funny, and they aren't commenting on the UN treaty about disabled people in that article.
But what does a UN treaty about disabled people have to do with the topic, a UN treaty about the internet? For that I'll listen to Vint Cerf and Tim Berners-Lee, as they probably know a thing or two about the internet.
So you're saying we should sign this treaty then? Why?
Which might be true or false, but doesn't really have a thing to do with TFA. Further, the US not signing this one is a good thing. And if the US signed it, and didn't honor it, I wouldn't have much of a problem with that either.
Do you have anything to back up your claim that we're not signing this because some deep character fault of the US rather than the fact that it is a very bad treaty which erodes freedom and rights, and puts control of the internet directly in control of states with a deep tyranny streak? Lacking any evidence, this becomes a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation, which leads me to wonder if your just trying to find faults for the sake of maintaining a pre-existing bias.
Would you rather that the US ratified this treaty, just to make it clear that they lay no claim to the internet?
Yes, the US has some deep faults, and have done some deeply disturbing things in the past (not-so-recent and recent), but they aren't all bad. Also, government is an immensely complex beast, thus it is hard to characterize isn't a single bile soaked ideology. Perhaps there are voices in the government leading to this decision for the "right" reasons? How could one ever prove this either way?
Well, your commend didn't add a damn thing to this discussion...
Nope.
so it seems like you're brining the rage to this party.
What rage, didn't notice any.
Good luck with that.
Thanks.
Get used to it.
I have. But I still can pine for the "glory days", I suppose. Where is the joy in getting old if I can't complain about everything going down hill? Seriously, things were better in the days of BBSs. I don't know if I've just aged, and my interests are different now, and I allocate my time differently, or if things have actually degraded. Well, I'm pretty sure /. has, but rather things as a whole.
As for the politics things... I'm not sure if the internet changed them, or if what is going on can actually be called politics anymore. Politics generally involved some form of discussion, or actual view point. It seems to be more defined by the negation of a view these days (Your not me, and thus don't hold my exact views; therefore you are an unthinking, evil, enemy type. Why do you hate freedom?). It has, though, completely killed this site for me. I want to read about stupid science and tech stories, if I wanted pseudo-political handwaving I'd be at Salon.com.
Drowning in smug yet, I hear its a bigger threat than even global warming.
Or you can take a nice happy medium, and have comfort and convenience, but be mindful of efficiency and conservation. I suppose I'd have to give up some of that feeling of moral superiority by taking the middle route, but I'm okay with that. Hell, my home theater set up draws less power than our high efficiency washer/dryer, and costs less a year to run. Actually our home theater set up probably costs less than anything else in our house, and all of our appliances, and A/C are new, high efficiency models.
"NTR"?
New Tropical Resort?
Never Trust Rehnquist?
Naked Teddy Roosevelt?
Nevada Television Remotes?
Narwhal Tap Revival?
Numismatist Telecommunication Radio?
Null Thermal Reflux?
Nigerian Theocratic Rector?
Nuclear Televangelist Reactor?
Is /. even an internet force anymore?
I kind of doubt it. I hardly see any of the old people anymore, and most comments are by people with 7 digit UIDs, and the quality has suffered pretty greatly (both in stories, and in comments). Hell, I used to have Slashdot as my homepage, and checked it many times a day. Now, I might visit once a week, and probably won't bother commenting, since I'm sure someone will call me a commie, or a "rethuglican" or something equally puerile. Even if the topic has nothing to do with politics (don't like the new kernel, Obama-voting fascist scum!"
There are only two reason to boot into Windows - Office, and gaming. Office is a legacy issue - my professors are now using iPads and other devices which don't speak "native" office and I suspect sending them ODFs would lead to less "your formatting is all broken" problems.
I need my Photoshop and Lightroom, right now, on top of gaming, they are whats keeping me in Windows-land. The Gimp isn't close, and I don't feel like futzing with VM or Wine. Actually, this is what keeps me from Linux right now, in general. My last install (earlier this year, with Ubuntu, Mint, and Suse) still required a fair amount of futzing, customizing, and searching out documentation. I don't feel like doing that anymore, especially when it gets in the way of me doing the stuff I want, or need, to do.
Linux has comes leaps and bounds since I started my yearly test ritual (around 1998, or so), but it still hasn't got to the point where it is as usable and friendly as OS X or Windows. Before I get attacked; I really want to like Linux, and there are features in it I'd love to have (a modern FS, repos, a bit more control over my hardware. I also love the FOSS model. Take that fanboys, you've been defused!
, nor likely would the steam users buy the console.
Odd, everyone I know who uses Steam owns a console. If one of the Big Three makes a console that interests me, with features that make games of the genres I like (RPG, RTS, 4x, and shooters that don't involve knee high walls) more interesting, I'd buy it. I'm even watching the Wii U closely, since was awesome for parties, and their is some interesting possibilities with the slaved screen (better battery life, and I'd probably buy it in a second).
True, though, most people I know who own consoles don't use Steam, or even own PCs anymore.
How so? I'm not going to radically change how I use my computer just so I can use Steam. I'm still not going to install Linux, just because Steam moves over there. (Or at least until using Linux as a smooth and flawless, and relatively stress free as Windows 7 or OS X whatever stupid cat their on now, which according to my yearly check, it isn't). If all gamers jumped ship, MS would still make money since companies still want Windows, my parents still want Windows, and
OEMs will still sell Windows. Hell, if Steam moved to Linux exclusively, I would still run Windows 7 (and maybe 9 if the trend holds), but I'd just use another box, or dual boot.
I actually do other things on my computer than just play games. Games might be 15-20% of the total time I actually spend sitting at my PC, the rest is work, or other forms of entertainment. The stuff I do that I consider "work" is more important than the whims of Valve, and my choice in OS and platform depend more on that than on Steam.
Microsoft is safe. But Valve is right to worry, if MS tries to cash in on the "App store" idiocy it could hurt them.
It might be real for some people (I don't doubt it), but where was it 30 years ago? It also is a bit of a fad, diagnostically, right now. I had several friends in college with very selective wheat allergies, they'd buy gluten free whatnot (at a premium, from a botique), then eat pasta and drink a hefeweizen at the local pub.
He said he "never heard of it as a kid", so I rather doubt he was a kid before ambulances, trauma centers, and CPR. Unless he is very, very, old indeed. Cellphones don't matter, long ago pay phones ruled the Earth, and most of them had free 911/emergency calls.
Hell, as a known quantity, I was a kid a mere 30-odd years ago, and I didn't know anyone allergic to peanuts, much less the silly "wheat allergy" thing that is so popular now.
It probably has less to do with technology and emergency services, than with novel environmental factors, and a differing diagnostic threshold.