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User: TodPunk

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  1. I'd prefer they expanded it. on Windows 10 Mobile Needs To Be Put Out of Its Misery (betanews.com) · · Score: 1

    I would actually like a windows phone. I'm an Android man, and the options for Windows phones on t-mobile sucks compared to my Nexus 6P, which I'll probably run for 4 or so years like I did the last phone I had. That said, when I bought this phone, I wanted to try a Win10 phone. I enjoyed playing with my friend's and it seems it has a really good thing I would enjoy more if Android had such an option: integration.

    I can shoehorn my own set of services for one or two aspects of this, but the same apps on my desktop, a similar experience if I suddenly use my phone as a desktop when docked, the use of XAML for development. Man, now I'm tempted to look at my abysmal options again.

  2. When was the rest of Facebook good UI? on ShatChat: How Facebook's Bizarre Obsession With Snapchat Is Ruining User Experience On Messenger (500ish.com) · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I use Facebook, and I'm aware of the consequences of that choice, but I have never been under the impression that it was a good user experience for anything.

    - It's not a good blogging engine
    - It's not an intuitive navigation for maintaining your friends list
    - It's not a good forum and regularly stifles good discussion
    - It's not a good marketing engine for actual engagement for your brand (good click-through rate, good demographic targeting, that's about it)
    - It's not a good photo album manager
    - It's not a good event organizer (though I will say it's WAY more useful than Meetup, for some reason)
    - It's also not a good Instant Messenger either, and never was

    What exactly are we losing by them doing other not-good UIs for things? It's not like snapchat is any better. Good god their UI is terrible. I get that some have figured out how to use it in spite of this, but this is not because it's intuitive, it is because it is popular. See also: Facebook.

  3. Re:Edge is a disgrace on Microsoft Browser Usage Drops 50% As Chrome Soars (networkworld.com) · · Score: 1

    You know they can measure a lot of this stuff, right? Firefox's core demographics are mostly enthusiasts and people that use firefox as a tool to work without caring how it works underneath, they only know it does what they need. Mozilla has even stated this. https://blog.mozilla.org/ux/20...

    Firefox change in attitude as their market share grew has affected their market share, and you can see the trends and map them to feature changes:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    Note how about 2010, give or take a bit depending on demographics, they peaked (different trackers attract different users, so slight variance). What changed about then? What was their attitudes in mailing lists and their bug trackers about then? What kind of press were they getting? From whom? These are all the insights we have on them, and their users we only get a subset of opinions on. We can still draw some interesting conclusions about it that are testable against the rest of the dataset.

    You can think whatever you want about me and my ego, cool, I support you in whatever you're going for there. But I'd prefer you pointed out how the data is wrong instead of trying to make it about my character somehow, because the data is all that matters to figuring out what's happening here. If my assessment needs adjusting, I'm happy to hear it. If all you've got is a theory about my projecting or something, we should probably move on. I know my bias. Doesn't change the data.

  4. Re:Edge is a disgrace on Microsoft Browser Usage Drops 50% As Chrome Soars (networkworld.com) · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    I can say that while Firefox people definitely haven't "given up," they keep killing every feature people love, and bringing in features that their core demographic doesn't care about. 64-bit doesn't matter, it has to be installed differently and my mother isn't going to figure out how or which version she's launching. Multi-process? For what? Javascript apps are still going to run in a single thread, and background tabs are still going to be slowed to a crawl. If they don't, nobody will notice anyway.

    The add-on story is far worse. They keep threatening to get rid of extensions and only support X or Y type (is XUL still being pushed? I haven't checked lately). There's so many uncertainties there.

    What I'm saying is, I love Firefox as a piece of tech, but they keep abandoning their community in the pursuit of some ideal that none of their users care about. My favorite example of this? There is a bug in Firefox where if you disable a button in Javascript for whatever reason, and then refresh the page, that button will remain disabled because it's "preserving the form state" even if the HTML clearly defines it should start enabled (like form validation or something, it doesn't matter, really). This is /only/ in Firefox, and the devs won't accept a fix patch or fix it themselves, because "it would be a bad user experience." The user can't disable or enable a button without using Javascript anyway, and that's not a user at that point. Logically, without any opinion on what should be done, none of this behavior should exist, but it was added by design from the core devs.

    That is not the only example, but it is a distilled version of their attitude towards users and devs. Their story is the only reality. It is as this point that any project ultimately loses all but the die-hard fans. Lots of historical precedence on that one.

    https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/s... It's 6 years old, the Bootstrap team started weighing in 3 years ago. This is why people might believe they have "given up." An incorrect wording in my opinion, but the sentiment is accurate and measurable in their written communications.

  5. Re:Probably should have focused more on Firefox Fail: Layoffs Kill Mozilla's Push Beyond the Browser (cnet.com) · · Score: 1

    I don't think the original poster is correct in why he's saying what he's saying, but his point might have some merit to consider. Not nearly as much merit as he thinks, but some.

    Decisions about the product line and their decisions in politics could easily be branches of the same root. Corporate culture is really important, and we have several pieces of data that would lend some credibility to the idea that their culture is sacrificing some very important technical decisions for the sake of something else (and I don't know what, I don't dive into this sort of thing.)

    For instance, they could have had a lot of the vision that the Brave browser is developing with in both technical and privacy based wins. Having people with the right politics was more important. That may or may not have been the right decision, I don't weigh in either way. I'm simply saying their choice obviously and measurably has affects, whether we feel they are good or bad, and this could easily contribute to their decline as an organization.

  6. I can't imagine it can be a whole lot more efficient than Windows Defender and still do as much. WD is really, really lean, and only checks for the most common malicious code. It's the 90% rule of anti-malware. If others are more efficient, I'd like to know why they thought they could throw out a given check of some kind, but I can't see how the gains would be that much when WD doesn't really do much in the first place (compared to the big dogs like Symantec or Kaspersky).

  7. I used to work for an AV vendor in their IT department. Others in my family have continued working in the software security industry for decades. They really are just bloated resource suckers with little value. As such, I haven't run anti-virus beyond windows defender for a little over 10 years, not even on my kids computers. They're kept up to date, ads are blocked on my network, and I have taught my kids how to recognize an executable from other kinds of files (thank god for re-enabling file extensions being shown, the stupidest Windows default of them all).

    We had one virus when my daughter opened an email that gave her some nasty popups constantly. She learned a valuable lesson that day, but I was able to reverse it in less than an hour booting into safe mode and removing the files. Been fine otherwise.

  8. Re:Shall I read the comments on this? on Running For Congress, Brianna Wu Criticizes The FBI's GamerGate Report (venturebeat.com) · · Score: 2

    I wouldn't blame the comments. I'd blame the fact that this was ever posted as news in the first place. Even if it was for nerds, it certainly doesn't matter.

  9. This was a step in that process. Ignore the inflamed language in TFA, it's inaccurate and makes this out to be something it's not. Most of the lands have been purchased and the ones he can't find the owner to make a deal with he has to go through the court system to work out. Seems boring when we put it that way.

  10. Re:I understand, we made a mistake on Mark Zuckerberg Drops Lawsuits To Force Hundreds of Hawaiians To Sell Him Land (theguardian.com) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    He's responding because it's a Facebook PR problem, a brand issue, not an actual mistake made by anyone involved. Even this headline is just inflammatory. He's not "suing" anyone in the sense that word conveys at all. He's not taking their land against their will either. He simply can't contact the owner and ask them to sell, because he has to go through the court to figure out who even owns the thing because the owner likely doesn't even know. This situation isn't that uncommon in land real estate either, but for some reason the internet got a hold of poorly worded "issues" and got out the pitchforks.

    I say the internet because that's what happened, but this sort of thing has happened before when papers reported things in odd ways, or a protester had some misleading language in a pamphlet or whatever. It's not unique to the internet. We just seem to do it a lot /more/ now with the proliferation of information and editors/writers with poor reasoning skills.

  11. Re:Another thing everyone is waiting for.... on Google Voice Receives First Update in Five Years (zdnet.com) · · Score: 1

    At some point I will be making this happen (obviously today is not that day). It is a thing I want myself. Just need to keep developing.

    Also having that with a SIP app on my cell so it just rings everywhere at once.

  12. Clear Linux, not to be confused with... on Microsoft Adds Intel's Clear Linux Open-Source OS To Azure Market (networkworld.com) · · Score: 1

    Not to be confused with https://www.clearos.com/ the rebranded of Clark Connect distro.

  13. Re:I don't get it... but maybe I'm not supposed to on Don't Call Switch a Tablet, Also It's Not Here To Oust the 3DS, Says Nintendo (cnet.com) · · Score: 1

    Yes, this is why my family is primarily PC gamers. $500ish PCs for the kids and these kinds of sales (as well as GOG and Humble Bundle DRM free games) are much more feasible here. We do the 3DS thing for Smash and Mario Kart though, which is nice on road trips.

  14. Re:I don't get it... but maybe I'm not supposed to on Don't Call Switch a Tablet, Also It's Not Here To Oust the 3DS, Says Nintendo (cnet.com) · · Score: 1

    The WiiU is actually an exception here, as it was sold at a loss for a good while: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/...

    The idea being presented by elrous0 is that this somehow means it's an equivalent loss and invalidates Nintendo's profitable console sales outside this exception. I built into my original point that it was only "most" of their console sales were at a profit, because these and certain temporary sales have been exceptions to that. His packaging of his point is false, though, and his point doesn't really invalidate or even deal with mine.

    This isn't twitter, we can speak to nuance here, and he's choosing not to for argument's sake.

  15. Re:I don't get it... but maybe I'm not supposed to on Don't Call Switch a Tablet, Also It's Not Here To Oust the 3DS, Says Nintendo (cnet.com) · · Score: 1

    I can help you out here.

    - Games don't need to be played on powerful systems to be performant, pretty, and fun. Nintendo has essentially built their company on this premise.
    - Portability here is for lan-party-esque participation, not "stand in line at the DMV" participation. You could use it in line at the DMV, but that's not its design.
    - It has no desire to be a tablet, regardless of our many uses of that term.
    - Nay-sayers about Nintendo's controls have basically been wrong every time. It's odd, not silly; it's different, not bad.
    - The core demographic of Nintendo lines are not children, they are families and 20-somethings that aren't into whatever the latest Call of Duty is.

    It is important when discussing poignant points like you have presented that we understand that Nintendo sells most of their consoles at a profit while Xbox and Playstation have largely been subsidized, and yet Nintendo still sells. They don't need to have the "market share" or whatever. They don't overlap as much as people seem to think. It's very difficult to play an XBox One or PS4 with my kids on the couch. That demographic is smaller than the disposable income single-player demo.

    If you don't want to hear what was done to your mother by a 12 year old, but want to play with others, Nintendo is the console to fulfill that. If you want good single player experiences, all the consoles have various offerings and what will satisfy you will be different based on what you're looking for. If you want the nostalgic IP of your childhood (assuming you grew up playing games) you also tend to gravitate toward Nintendo, with the notable, constant exception of Final Fantasy if that was your thing in days past.

    I have friends who are die-hard Nintendo fan-boys and can't take discussing Nintendo's lacks (like their inability to understand online play, or account management, or the expense of having to own 4 copies of a game if you and your kids want to play through a game together on a 3DS or something). Nintendo definitely does have downsides. That said, the dollars have spoken and Nintendo still seems to have quite a bit of value that the arm-chair "this console sucks" crowd seems to give them credit for. It might be worth-while not to discount that.

  16. This already happens on Windows 10 Will Soon Lock Your PC When You Step Away From It (theverge.com) · · Score: 1, Insightful

    It's called a screen-saver which turns off the display and requires a password, and it's been a feature of Windows since at least 2000/XP. It can also be set by group policy. "Inactivity" as questioned in TFS is just defined as "not providing any input" for a certain amount of time.

    Why is this news? Because people that didn't know it existed will now have it set by default? OK, good. They should, and they likely won't know what happened anyway. They'll wiggle the mouse or whatever it is they do when they work on a computer that doesn't do this and click their name because they don't have a password set, or who knows what else.

    Unless they're going the stupid route and not making this the same as current "unlock" functionality, but then I don't get the comparison to Winkey+L

  17. Florida Man reference? on FBI Arrests Volkswagen Executive On Charges Related To Dieselgate (cnet.com) · · Score: 1

    How did we miss this Florida Man opportunity!?

  18. Re:What's the point? on Huawei Snubs Google, Ships An Android Phone With Alexa (reuters.com) · · Score: 1

    He didn't specify it was an IR remote. =c) Radio remote would be fine. A phone widget button could do it, wouldn't even need to open an app.

  19. Re:What's the point? on Huawei Snubs Google, Ships An Android Phone With Alexa (reuters.com) · · Score: 2

    Nice! On the one hand, I completely agree that this is a very handy feature. On the other hand, you're essentially describing a very complicated "clapper" here, right? I don't at all wish to imply that this complication could not have advantages, like not turning off the lights when someone just gets excited or whatever. Just seems like a bit of a Rube Goldberg machine for turning off lights.

  20. What's the point? on Huawei Snubs Google, Ships An Android Phone With Alexa (reuters.com) · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm still waiting for the digital "assistants" to be able to do much. I've played with them, and they are very, very basic. The number of things they can do accurately and reliably is quite small, and that's if you don't have an accent or quirks in your speech. I can't even get any of them (Siri, Alexa, Cortana) to reliably play a song that isn't from their preferred music store. They are all like that in almost all of their functions. It's a walled garden of suck.

    I will give Amazon the credit that they're so far the only ones that have published a list of the things you can say to their Alexa. This is really useful support info and lets me know that it's mostly about ordering things and really basic queries like the population of a town or the conversion of quarts to ounces.

  21. Re:there is one thing I like about it... on Microsoft To Revamp Windows 10 UI With Upcoming 'Project Neon' Update, Leaked Images Show (mspoweruser.com) · · Score: 1

    I have been doing the [ Winkey->"type first few chars of application name"->Enter ] system since I believe WinXP SP3, and I never really see much of the start menu features in any of the different UIs across the years.

    In addition, you may find that shortcut keys for a lot of common things beyond the typical "alt-tab" to be useful to your workflows. The UI is largely for the typical non-tech. Getting efficient in Windows is just as easy and customizable as it is in Linux, but with the advantage of Gnome not fucking it up every time they think they know better how we should use our desktop (I know I'm assuming Gnome usage in this, just run with me for a bit).

    I personally like working in both windows and linux for different things, but the UI is never a reason I give a damn about my OS. The configuration of my workflows, the applications available to me, and the upgrade processes are what matter to me. Both have their advantages in different spaces for me because of that preference.

  22. Re:good luck! on GamerGate Critic Brianna Wu To Run For Congress (cnn.com) · · Score: 1

    As a data point, I wouldn't use "got a special edition" as an indicator of success. Quite frankly, sales have to have been abysmal, measurably so:

    https://steamspy.com/app/35020...

    I'm not going to say that this means X or Y. I'm just presenting data that counters your claim of data. If you have other data, I'm happy to see it.

  23. Re:Slower than a smartphone? on Nintendo Switch Uses Nvidia Tegra X1 SoC, Clock Speeds Outed (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 1

    A number of games I primarily use the "tablet thing" WiiU controller Anything to do with Zelda uses it quite a lot. Hyrule Warriors I play on that screen while one of my kids plays on the big screen. Smash Brothers obviously has some advantages for either. This is to say nothing of the games that we play on that screen exclusively when someone is using the big screen for something else.

    Basically, it depends on the game and your configuration.

  24. Re:Is the EPA violating the establishment clause? on Energy Department Refuses To Give Trump Team Names of People Who Worked On Climate Change (businessinsider.com) · · Score: 1

    Swaying an opinion be it individual or en masse does not need facts, and never has.

    What is needed is better PR, and regardless of what you or I think about the election or climate change, it is measurably true from the results of the past that we have a definitive divide between what media thinks reaches people and what /actually/ reaches people. Research and data is not going to make this one happen.

    It is always important to know what game you are playing when trying to beat opposition. If you are playing a different game, you might win your game, but it might not be the game that matters.

  25. Re:Just when I think things are getting better... on Bitcoin Hits Highest Levels In Almost Three Years (reuters.com) · · Score: 3, Funny

    Oh come on, you have to see that the blockchain cryptomancy technology here will lead to a deep AI machine big learning data revolution and finally give us the open cloud paradigm for internet of dark web things computing we've always dreamed of.

    (Since Poe's Law is a thing, yes, this is in jest).