A gaming GPU. The Mac Pro ships with a workstation GPU, optimized for a completely different set of operations than those used to render a frame of WoW, so it does so poorly.
windows-users are 20% more busy with OS/computer interaction than mac-users
I use both and I'm equally productive on both. I boot the system, launch my applications, and work. Thing is, my PC boots in 3 seconds (literally) while my newer (by 3 months considering release dates; the PC is actually newer to me) Mac takes 15, my PC starts my applications faster (the same applications), and my PC has a 4k display, compared to my Mac's 2.8k. Mind you, I'm also comparing 2 laptops, here. My PC has dial M.2 SSDs and a spinning disk for bulk storage, a high-end GPU (970M with 6GB GDDR5, not the highest-end, but better than the M370X with 2GB GDDR5 you can get in a MacBook Pro; don't take my word for it though), is.1mm thinner and.33lb lighter, and is user-serviceable (which came in handy when I dropped it, over-flexed the display bezel, and destroyed the display cable in the process; it was a $24 part, shipped, and about 20min to replace -- mind you it would have taken longer had I not already familiarized myself with the inside of the machine, maybe an hour in total).
Don't get me wrong, I love the direction Steve jobs had planned out for OS X, and was a huge fan of Snow Leopard. I skipped Lion and went straight to Mountain Lion, then Mavericks, then Yosemite, and I refuse to touch El Capitan. the hardware is great for what it is; it's just not what I need it to be and the OS hasn't really been since Mavericks came out. But for my daily work? For actually being productive? Both systems work just fine, the PC just does it faster and with more screen real-estate. In either case, once I've got my applications open, the OS stays out of my way... until it's time to install updates, then OS X nags me (and doesn't remind me to install them when I tell it to; it always waits 2 or 3 days, instead of reminding me the next day as the menu option states, and seems to know right when I've started being productive. Windows nags about updates, as well, but it usually doesn't start until my work day is through and I can actually deal with it.
In all, I've spent more time fighting with OSX this year than Windows, which is sad since I've only used the MacBook Pro (aside from waking it weekly to sync some files and install updates) for the 2 weeks I was waiting for the display cable for my PC to ship; and it's not lack of familiarity, I'd been using a Mac full-time for 6 years, right up until I bought this PC in mid-November. And yes, I'm also counting the trouble I had reinstalling Win 10 on a Lenovo tablet I got a couple weeks ago when a BIOS update wiped out the keys for the encrypted (from the factory, so no recovery key was available for me to have possibly recorded and used) drive and toasted all my data. Well, not all my data, I had gotten as far as installing Firefox, Chrome, and driver updates; the fault lies with Lenovo (or whoever refurbishes systems for them) on that one, though, not Windows. But, again, and in fairness, I'm still counting that in my "time spent fighting with Windows this year" for the sake of this comparison.
As for the PC having needed a repair, yeah, so? I dropped it. The Mac would have failed in some non-user-repairable way had it been dropped in the same manner and landed the same (very unlucky) way. And it still would have been down for two weeks, as well; the difference is that I would have been paying Apple an arm and a leg for the repair and, if the Genius taking it in for repair was having a bad day, been without my data for that time, as they would insist on having the drive left in place. Assuming the drive made its way back to me without having been wiped (or.. at all).
Computers are tools and I strongly encourage everyone to use whatever tools they work best with. When I was in school, that was a Windows PC because that was what was expected of me; for 5 years after, I stuck
You could do that (legally*) on a PC if Apple would allow it. And you could build a more capable system than Apple even offers, on top of that; you could literally run all 3 OSes at once (two would have to be virtualized, but I think you'd be fine with that) with their own dedicated displays and input devices, effectively actually running 3 computers in a single machine. You literally can't do that on a Mac, because OSX doesn't support running a proper hypervisor, nor running under one (legally*).
There is literally no technical reason why OSX can't run on non-Apple hardware, as made evident by the fact that people do it all the time. There is no special hardware that allows OSX to run, the roadblock is literally a system service called DSMOS (Don't Steal MacOS), which checks the system ID and hangs the boot process if it ID is not that of an Apple machine; the workaround is to either use a UEFI module to change the reported system ID or replace the DSMOS binary with one that simply exits with the proper code. Then, assuming you've got OSX-compatible drivers (often recompiled open source drivers "borrowed" from another BSD distro), you've got a working PC running OSX.
* You can actually do that on a PC, just not legally, and it's a bit of a hack and somewhat unstable due to having to modify system components to not complain about the lack of an Apple-blessed system ID and, often, the shoehorning of FreeBSD drivers for hardware that isn't officially supported by OSX.
More points of failure was in relation to the NAS remark. Thunderbolt 2 is local external storage, not NAS; you're actually doing exactly the opposite of what JDG1980 says you should be doing and basically seem to be in agreement with the poster you're trying to argue with. Too bad you can't pull your head out long enough to see that.
which would imply the user granting an add-on the ability to change the settings on their behalf. I think AC was pretty clearly agreeing with you that the user should be allowed to change the settings themselves when they said
Security relevant settings should of course be changeable.
and
But they should only be changed by the user, and only via native browser UI
You must have seen these remarks; you directly quoted each of them.
Windows has traditionally been a crapfest of ads and spyware unless you manage your system competently. It's actually gotten a lot better in that regard and I haven't had to hand-hold Windows users in my family since the last of them upgraded to Windows 7. I did have to do some support (finding the location of settings) for a couple Win8 users, but that's understandable given the massive UI changes.
If you want to see a crapfest, take a look at desktop Linux. Things were getting really good around 2010 or so, which is when I got my first Mac; the reason I ended up on Windows if that Windows (with cygwin) got a lot better while OSX has been getting worse and Linux desktop packages have taken a massive dive.
If what you want is an OS that gives you a window manager that doesn't look like ass, runs your applications, and stays the hell out of your way once my applications are open, Windows is leading the pack at the moment. Who knows, maybe Cook will resign or pass away and someone more Jobs-like will take the reigns; if that happens, it'll be another half-decade or so before OSX recovers, if it does. Fingers crossed...
After ~25 years of using Windows I'll say Windows blows compared to OSX. OSX sucks _too_, but I find it to be far more consistent.
If, by "consistent", you mean the suck from the last version remains while new suck is consistently added, I have to agree; it's been that way since Lion. I loved Snow Leopard, though. With Windows, at least some of the old suck gets removed with each release, even if new suck is added. That means, while Windows always has sucked, and likely always will, the level of suck has remained more or less the same if you follow the "every other version is garbage" rule; on the other hand, OSX keeps its suck and piles more on. I blame Steve Jobs for this; if he hadn't died, he'd still be keeping that in check and OSX would still be the better choice.
With Windows throwing out old suck and replacing it with new every release, at least the things that annoyed me about the prior release finally go away when I upgrade. Sadly, not so with OSX, which has become more and more annoying to me with each release, starting with Lion. Snow Leopard was certainly an improvement over any version of Windows, though; it's too bad Tim Cook has allowed marketing to lead engineering down the path to hell.
I learned the swipe left thing by accident when picking up the tablet; my finger slipped and BAM, there were all of my windows. Glad I was able to share that tip with someone.
Yeah... I switched to Mac back in 2010 and my Windows machine remained a testing platform, a role in which it was joined by my Linux desktop. I upgraded the Windows machine to Win 10 when it was released and absolutely hated the way it ran, but it turns out the hardware was failing (and died in November). I upgraded to much better hardware and haven't looked back; my Mac is now a testing platform alongside my aging Linux desktop, and the PC is my daily driver.
I like Windows 10 so much, in fact, that I purchased a Yoga Tablet 2 for travel and immediately upgraded it. While it's a bit slow if I'm trying to open all of my apps at once, that's to be expected of an Atom CPU with 2GB of RAM. It's the first tablet experience I've found that surpasses the iPad.
My wife, an avid Apple fan, seems to agree. She's been a Mac user for somewhere around 20 years now, has had various iPads and iPods, and has used an iPhone since they came out, except for a short stint as an Android user wherein she was not impressed (I, on the other hand, hate how iOS works on a phone, despite preferring it over Android on a tablet; this isn't the place for that, though). She once swore to me that she would never use a Windows machine for anything but gaming; so I bought her one in December, with that purpose in mind, and she also has not looked back. The Mac is now her Silhouette design platform and the PC is everything else.
I don't know where did the hate for windows 8 came from.
That's easily explained; you see, most of the Windows 8 hate comes from desktop users without touchscreens and, well, you said it yourself...
I don't know where did the hate for windows 8 came from.
It makes sense that you'd like the Windows 8 interface on a tablet, as it was designed for touchscreens.
Have you tried Windows 10 in tablet mode? It adds space between icons, buttons, and menu options to make them easier to tap, and makes windows full screen (remembering size and position when you pop them off the top of the screen, which you can still do in tablet mode). Also, did you know you can swipe from the left edge of the screen to change apps? Or that it takes less time for the start menu to pop up than it does for the Windows 8 start screen to transition in (which is useful if you're tapping the Win key to begin a search, which is much faster than navigating either the start menu or the start screen)? Oh, and if you're really and truly in love with the start screen, tablet mode brings it back, with no transition so it's now as fast to pop as the start menu.
You don't type "straight" into google and find porn. You do find porn if you type "gay" or "lesbian"; it's not on the first page, but it's certainly there.
It's not about avoiding the topic because it takes effort to discuss, it's about avoiding the literally impossible task of removing all of the porn from the results.
Or are you saying we should allow porn on a child-friendly search engine?
Mind you, I think the entire premise of a child-friendly search engine is a bit off-putting to begin with; a child young enough to not have already had the "two mommies" and "two daddies" talk shouldn't be using the internet unsupervised in the first place.
This. We shield our kids from reality and protect them from anything that might be able to make them a better, more balanced, person, then we wonder why they grow up to be intolerant and completely lack and character or backbone.
In reality, by making sure nobody is ever "mean" to our kids, all we do is make them weak and unable to handle the real meanies out in the real world; and by hiding reality from our kids, all we do is force them to explore their urges (be they sexual, criminal, or theological in nature, for example) without guidance, often with dangerous consequences. As for the worry? Any parent who deprives their child of thick skin and a backbone should worry, the first time their kid encounters reality outside the parent's sphere of "safety" they're going to be completely lost.
Now, I'm not saying we should abuse kids (in any sense of the word), but they do need to be exposed to reality. Perhaps not the harsh realities of life, which they'll be better equipped to avoid on their own if exposed to a broader reality, but it isn't harmful to occasionally mess with their sense of reality (and let them work it out for themselves), take their toys from them to teach them why stealing is wrong (e.g. after they've taken something of yours), or even spank them (when the thing they're doing is likely to cause more harm than that if left unchecked). It's not harmful to let them know that they are not, by default, a special snowflake and teach them that becoming such a special snowflake, the kind of person society will remember forever and talk about in history books, takes drive, determination, lots and lots of effort, and a little bit of luck.
Meanwhile, there is clear harm in telling every kid that any effort at all, just simply participating, is worthy of praise and an award; this teaches entitlement, it teaches that you only have to show up and go through the motions to get the reward, you needn't actually do a better job than anyone else, because there are plenty of awards to go around. While that's a nice sentiment and I'm sure we all wish it were actually true, I dare any one of you to try it at work (at your own risk, of course) and let me know how it works out). There is clear harm in shielding kids from the pain of their mistakes, particularly when those mistakes carry considerable risk of inducing their own pain; for example, if your kid runs into traffic once and you tell them not to, they do it again and you tell them more sternly, they do it again and you yell at them, you're doing them a disservice if they don't get a spanking the next time they do it; this is something that can hurt or kill them, it should be a painful experience for them every time it happens, so the stop doing it before they really get hurt.
But no, no reality or behavioral learning for our little special snowflakes. It's like we don't want them to succeed in the world.
Will your kid hate you if you spank them? Yeah, for about 5 seconds. Sure, they won't be happy about it, but they'll get over it (quickly, at that) and, later in life, they'll realize why you did it and be thankful, assuming you reserve that severe of a punishment for instances where they're risking severe injury or death to themselves or others. Will they curse your name when you take their toys? Of course they will! But, again, they'll get over it quickly and, later in life, realize why and be thankful, again assuming you reserve that punishment for instances where they've caused (or very seriously caused risk of) loss or damage to someone else's property through their own knowing action (e.g. they stole or purposely broke something). Those are severe punishments, which should be reserved for severe behaviors; they should not be avoided altogether. We, as a species, learn best from pain and loss.
Most successful people do because most successful people are. The ethical trick is to keep to making the best of bad situations caused by others, rather than causing them yourself.
Putting the session ID in the URL prevents people from sharing links without also sharing their session. Likewise with a transaction ID, unless you only allow each transaction to occur once, in which case you break the "back" button. Never allow a user to accidentally share their session and never, never, and I mean never break the browser.
So, within the confines of basic security and usability practices, care to explain this again?
I'm sure there are easy programming jobs out there.
Ahh, there's the problem... You seem to be conflating labor-intensity with difficulty. I suspected as much and even tried to correct for that, but there it is.
I do, in fact, have deadlines; however, I'm also the one who sets those deadlines, unless a business need for a specific feature dictates otherwise. I do realize that puts me in a unique position, but I'm not just speaking for myself here; of the hundreds of developers I communicate with on a regular basis, I know only a handful who work long hours on a regular basis. Interesting that you mention the nightmarish hell that is working for a contracting firm, as that's what those few actually do.
As for flipping burgers, again, never said any of it was hard (though you underestimate the labor involved in flipping burgers for BK with your "just stick it in the machine" comment, the line workers actually assemble the sandwiches and nobody stops moving during their shift, except maybe the manager when they have to do their paperwork); it's easy work, but you're always moving. I'll remind you that the term labor does refer to physical activity; programming is definitely more mentally taxing than flipping burgers, but that was never what we were discussing.
It may just be that the people I know work for companies that value quality over quantity (except for that handful who work for contract firms) and understand that letting their developers take the time to think about what they're doing before they write the code, they can get twice as much good, productive, code written in half the time. sure, overall 1/4-1/8 as much code gets written, but when you consider that 1/2-3/4 of the code not being written is code that would have been rewritten or discarded in the first place, well... it just makes sense to give developers the ability to control their stress levels and think through the problems you're asking them to solve. Maybe it's just that most of the developers I work with on a regular basis work for startups who seem to understand that fact.
Here the voters will punish the government (sometimes) by wiping them out
Then do something about the CRTC so you can finally have real internet up there. Tek Savvy and the other indie providers are great, if you can get Bell and Rogers to stop screwing with their customers and allow them to sell the higher speeds; the CRTC was supposed to do "something" about both of those issues a few years back, but never did. not that the situation is much better on this side of the border, but at least the FCC isn't telling us they're gonna fix the problems, then not doing anything about them; instead, they're telling us they're gonna fix a smaller set of problems that affect a smaller number of us, and actually doing it. Same net effect, but it just feels ever so slightly more honest than what the CRTC is up to.
I didn't know they never expanded the surcharge, and I never dreamed the industry would pull their heads out of their asses for long enough to realize that was the right move. This conversation is turning out to be full of surprises! That idea should still stand for music, though; you just have to make sure to buy tapes and CDs, which still carry the surcharge.
As for going to court, so far the media companies don't seem to be doing more then making threats, often illegally by threatening to sue for much more then they can.
I haven't been following the Voltage scandal for a while now, but last I heard they had gone after a few indie ISPs for records, won, and started filing suits. I actually know someone who was affected by that, but we don't talk often; I do know he was served paperwork regarding the issue, though, so it seems they're doing more than just threatening. Unless my timelines are off, which is fully possible, he was served around the same time the $2K limit went into effect, so they may have dropped it at that point, not wanting to dump money into something with a very limited possibility for return. I know the Voltage thing has been going on for at least a couple years now, but I'm not entirely positive when the $2K limit was put into effect.
No, that AC's plan does actually seem to account for that by charging 20% of the declared value (a declaration which has tax ramifications; worse ones if, during an IRS audit, you are found to have made such a declaration in bad faith) to fund the Copyright Office and provide grants for the creation of new works. Ostensibly, works created under those grants would fall into the public domain immediately, as The People already paid for them via the grant. Additionally, if extension fees are funding the Copyright Office, our tax dollars won't be; that is another net benefit of such a policy.
As for yoru apparent fear that these extensions would be abused, consider that 14-21 years is a damn sight better than the current situation. Also consider that if 20% of the value of the copyright over the prior 7 years of profit is more than the company is willing to spend, that is likely because they don't think they'll make more than that over the next 7, which, let's admit, is the common scenario; that is to say, most copyrights won't see extensions filed under such a system.
Given the above, I can support the idea as-is. Lower the initial term to 7 years and include a provision to allow the Copyright Office to deny extension requests for low-value, no-value, or negative-value works, request proof of declared value when they think someone's pulling their leg, and deny extensions (and report to the IRS) if such proof is not provided or the proof tells a different story, and I'll fund the campaign.
Yes, in Canada (the only country I am aware of with a cap on civil copyright damages) you've been paying a surcharge on all recordable media for nearly two decades. that surcharge goes straight to publishers, whether you're using that blank media to copy their wares or back up your own. I'd say you should damn well have free reign to copy and distribute to your heart's content at that point; you're paying for the privilege.
Canada is in a very unique position and your experience there should not be used as a frame of reference for how copyright works in the rest of the world; the few judgments that have been served thus far outside of Canada have bankrupted the folk who've been slammed with them. If I recall correctly, the $2K cap up there came about in response to an appeal of just such a ruling on your side of the border.
My suggestion? Find out how much the surcharge is on various types of recordable media, buy enough that you've paid $2K in surcharge, keep the receipts, then go on a piracy spree. Bring the receipts to court to show that you've already paid the statutory maximum penalty, plead guilty, and leave. Of course, consult your attorney first (as this post does not constitute legal advice), but there's a fair chance you'd get a scowl from the plaintiff's lawyer and a dirty look from the judge before being excused from the courthouse with no further penalty.
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I don't know what WoW needs now
A gaming GPU. The Mac Pro ships with a workstation GPU, optimized for a completely different set of operations than those used to render a frame of WoW, so it does so poorly.
windows-users are 20% more busy with OS/computer interaction than mac-users
I use both and I'm equally productive on both. I boot the system, launch my applications, and work. Thing is, my PC boots in 3 seconds (literally) while my newer (by 3 months considering release dates; the PC is actually newer to me) Mac takes 15, my PC starts my applications faster (the same applications), and my PC has a 4k display, compared to my Mac's 2.8k. Mind you, I'm also comparing 2 laptops, here. My PC has dial M.2 SSDs and a spinning disk for bulk storage, a high-end GPU (970M with 6GB GDDR5, not the highest-end, but better than the M370X with 2GB GDDR5 you can get in a MacBook Pro; don't take my word for it though), is .1mm thinner and .33lb lighter, and is user-serviceable (which came in handy when I dropped it, over-flexed the display bezel, and destroyed the display cable in the process; it was a $24 part, shipped, and about 20min to replace -- mind you it would have taken longer had I not already familiarized myself with the inside of the machine, maybe an hour in total).
Don't get me wrong, I love the direction Steve jobs had planned out for OS X, and was a huge fan of Snow Leopard. I skipped Lion and went straight to Mountain Lion, then Mavericks, then Yosemite, and I refuse to touch El Capitan. the hardware is great for what it is; it's just not what I need it to be and the OS hasn't really been since Mavericks came out. But for my daily work? For actually being productive? Both systems work just fine, the PC just does it faster and with more screen real-estate. In either case, once I've got my applications open, the OS stays out of my way... until it's time to install updates, then OS X nags me (and doesn't remind me to install them when I tell it to; it always waits 2 or 3 days, instead of reminding me the next day as the menu option states, and seems to know right when I've started being productive. Windows nags about updates, as well, but it usually doesn't start until my work day is through and I can actually deal with it.
In all, I've spent more time fighting with OSX this year than Windows, which is sad since I've only used the MacBook Pro (aside from waking it weekly to sync some files and install updates) for the 2 weeks I was waiting for the display cable for my PC to ship; and it's not lack of familiarity, I'd been using a Mac full-time for 6 years, right up until I bought this PC in mid-November. And yes, I'm also counting the trouble I had reinstalling Win 10 on a Lenovo tablet I got a couple weeks ago when a BIOS update wiped out the keys for the encrypted (from the factory, so no recovery key was available for me to have possibly recorded and used) drive and toasted all my data. Well, not all my data, I had gotten as far as installing Firefox, Chrome, and driver updates; the fault lies with Lenovo (or whoever refurbishes systems for them) on that one, though, not Windows. But, again, and in fairness, I'm still counting that in my "time spent fighting with Windows this year" for the sake of this comparison.
As for the PC having needed a repair, yeah, so? I dropped it. The Mac would have failed in some non-user-repairable way had it been dropped in the same manner and landed the same (very unlucky) way. And it still would have been down for two weeks, as well; the difference is that I would have been paying Apple an arm and a leg for the repair and, if the Genius taking it in for repair was having a bad day, been without my data for that time, as they would insist on having the drive left in place. Assuming the drive made its way back to me without having been wiped (or.. at all).
Computers are tools and I strongly encourage everyone to use whatever tools they work best with. When I was in school, that was a Windows PC because that was what was expected of me; for 5 years after, I stuck
You could do that (legally*) on a PC if Apple would allow it. And you could build a more capable system than Apple even offers, on top of that; you could literally run all 3 OSes at once (two would have to be virtualized, but I think you'd be fine with that) with their own dedicated displays and input devices, effectively actually running 3 computers in a single machine. You literally can't do that on a Mac, because OSX doesn't support running a proper hypervisor, nor running under one (legally*).
There is literally no technical reason why OSX can't run on non-Apple hardware, as made evident by the fact that people do it all the time. There is no special hardware that allows OSX to run, the roadblock is literally a system service called DSMOS (Don't Steal MacOS), which checks the system ID and hangs the boot process if it ID is not that of an Apple machine; the workaround is to either use a UEFI module to change the reported system ID or replace the DSMOS binary with one that simply exits with the proper code. Then, assuming you've got OSX-compatible drivers (often recompiled open source drivers "borrowed" from another BSD distro), you've got a working PC running OSX.
* You can actually do that on a PC, just not legally, and it's a bit of a hack and somewhat unstable due to having to modify system components to not complain about the lack of an Apple-blessed system ID and, often, the shoehorning of FreeBSD drivers for hardware that isn't officially supported by OSX.
But you don't.
More points of failure was in relation to the NAS remark. Thunderbolt 2 is local external storage, not NAS; you're actually doing exactly the opposite of what JDG1980 says you should be doing and basically seem to be in agreement with the poster you're trying to argue with. Too bad you can't pull your head out long enough to see that.
let users grant that kind of permission
was, I think, referring to
maybe by explicit opt-in permission from the user
which would imply the user granting an add-on the ability to change the settings on their behalf. I think AC was pretty clearly agreeing with you that the user should be allowed to change the settings themselves when they said
Security relevant settings should of course be changeable.
and
But they should only be changed by the user, and only via native browser UI
You must have seen these remarks; you directly quoted each of them.
the censors at google are about to delist my website
Your corporate overreach blocker can't block that? Garbage.
Windows has traditionally been a crapfest of ads and spyware unless you manage your system competently. It's actually gotten a lot better in that regard and I haven't had to hand-hold Windows users in my family since the last of them upgraded to Windows 7. I did have to do some support (finding the location of settings) for a couple Win8 users, but that's understandable given the massive UI changes.
If you want to see a crapfest, take a look at desktop Linux. Things were getting really good around 2010 or so, which is when I got my first Mac; the reason I ended up on Windows if that Windows (with cygwin) got a lot better while OSX has been getting worse and Linux desktop packages have taken a massive dive.
If what you want is an OS that gives you a window manager that doesn't look like ass, runs your applications, and stays the hell out of your way once my applications are open, Windows is leading the pack at the moment. Who knows, maybe Cook will resign or pass away and someone more Jobs-like will take the reigns; if that happens, it'll be another half-decade or so before OSX recovers, if it does. Fingers crossed...
After ~25 years of using Windows I'll say Windows blows compared to OSX. OSX sucks _too_, but I find it to be far more consistent.
If, by "consistent", you mean the suck from the last version remains while new suck is consistently added, I have to agree; it's been that way since Lion. I loved Snow Leopard, though. With Windows, at least some of the old suck gets removed with each release, even if new suck is added. That means, while Windows always has sucked, and likely always will, the level of suck has remained more or less the same if you follow the "every other version is garbage" rule; on the other hand, OSX keeps its suck and piles more on. I blame Steve Jobs for this; if he hadn't died, he'd still be keeping that in check and OSX would still be the better choice.
With Windows throwing out old suck and replacing it with new every release, at least the things that annoyed me about the prior release finally go away when I upgrade. Sadly, not so with OSX, which has become more and more annoying to me with each release, starting with Lion. Snow Leopard was certainly an improvement over any version of Windows, though; it's too bad Tim Cook has allowed marketing to lead engineering down the path to hell.
I learned the swipe left thing by accident when picking up the tablet; my finger slipped and BAM, there were all of my windows. Glad I was able to share that tip with someone.
Yeah... I switched to Mac back in 2010 and my Windows machine remained a testing platform, a role in which it was joined by my Linux desktop. I upgraded the Windows machine to Win 10 when it was released and absolutely hated the way it ran, but it turns out the hardware was failing (and died in November). I upgraded to much better hardware and haven't looked back; my Mac is now a testing platform alongside my aging Linux desktop, and the PC is my daily driver.
I like Windows 10 so much, in fact, that I purchased a Yoga Tablet 2 for travel and immediately upgraded it. While it's a bit slow if I'm trying to open all of my apps at once, that's to be expected of an Atom CPU with 2GB of RAM. It's the first tablet experience I've found that surpasses the iPad.
My wife, an avid Apple fan, seems to agree. She's been a Mac user for somewhere around 20 years now, has had various iPads and iPods, and has used an iPhone since they came out, except for a short stint as an Android user wherein she was not impressed (I, on the other hand, hate how iOS works on a phone, despite preferring it over Android on a tablet; this isn't the place for that, though). She once swore to me that she would never use a Windows machine for anything but gaming; so I bought her one in December, with that purpose in mind, and she also has not looked back. The Mac is now her Silhouette design platform and the PC is everything else.
I have a tablet running windows 8.1.
I don't know where did the hate for windows 8 came from.
That's easily explained; you see, most of the Windows 8 hate comes from desktop users without touchscreens and, well, you said it yourself...
I don't know where did the hate for windows 8 came from.
It makes sense that you'd like the Windows 8 interface on a tablet, as it was designed for touchscreens.
Have you tried Windows 10 in tablet mode? It adds space between icons, buttons, and menu options to make them easier to tap, and makes windows full screen (remembering size and position when you pop them off the top of the screen, which you can still do in tablet mode). Also, did you know you can swipe from the left edge of the screen to change apps? Or that it takes less time for the start menu to pop up than it does for the Windows 8 start screen to transition in (which is useful if you're tapping the Win key to begin a search, which is much faster than navigating either the start menu or the start screen)? Oh, and if you're really and truly in love with the start screen, tablet mode brings it back, with no transition so it's now as fast to pop as the start menu.
Enjoy!
So much of this wisdom is missing from modern bumper-corner helicopter parenting. Thank you for documenting it here.
Sounds like you did the right thing. How much crap did you take for it?
They don't brick, they go into write only mode. Ask Intel, they'll tell ya.
You don't type "straight" into google and find porn. You do find porn if you type "gay" or "lesbian"; it's not on the first page, but it's certainly there.
It's not about avoiding the topic because it takes effort to discuss, it's about avoiding the literally impossible task of removing all of the porn from the results.
Or are you saying we should allow porn on a child-friendly search engine?
Mind you, I think the entire premise of a child-friendly search engine is a bit off-putting to begin with; a child young enough to not have already had the "two mommies" and "two daddies" talk shouldn't be using the internet unsupervised in the first place.
This. We shield our kids from reality and protect them from anything that might be able to make them a better, more balanced, person, then we wonder why they grow up to be intolerant and completely lack and character or backbone.
In reality, by making sure nobody is ever "mean" to our kids, all we do is make them weak and unable to handle the real meanies out in the real world; and by hiding reality from our kids, all we do is force them to explore their urges (be they sexual, criminal, or theological in nature, for example) without guidance, often with dangerous consequences. As for the worry? Any parent who deprives their child of thick skin and a backbone should worry, the first time their kid encounters reality outside the parent's sphere of "safety" they're going to be completely lost.
Now, I'm not saying we should abuse kids (in any sense of the word), but they do need to be exposed to reality. Perhaps not the harsh realities of life, which they'll be better equipped to avoid on their own if exposed to a broader reality, but it isn't harmful to occasionally mess with their sense of reality (and let them work it out for themselves), take their toys from them to teach them why stealing is wrong (e.g. after they've taken something of yours), or even spank them (when the thing they're doing is likely to cause more harm than that if left unchecked). It's not harmful to let them know that they are not, by default, a special snowflake and teach them that becoming such a special snowflake, the kind of person society will remember forever and talk about in history books, takes drive, determination, lots and lots of effort, and a little bit of luck.
Meanwhile, there is clear harm in telling every kid that any effort at all, just simply participating, is worthy of praise and an award; this teaches entitlement, it teaches that you only have to show up and go through the motions to get the reward, you needn't actually do a better job than anyone else, because there are plenty of awards to go around. While that's a nice sentiment and I'm sure we all wish it were actually true, I dare any one of you to try it at work (at your own risk, of course) and let me know how it works out). There is clear harm in shielding kids from the pain of their mistakes, particularly when those mistakes carry considerable risk of inducing their own pain; for example, if your kid runs into traffic once and you tell them not to, they do it again and you tell them more sternly, they do it again and you yell at them, you're doing them a disservice if they don't get a spanking the next time they do it; this is something that can hurt or kill them, it should be a painful experience for them every time it happens, so the stop doing it before they really get hurt.
But no, no reality or behavioral learning for our little special snowflakes. It's like we don't want them to succeed in the world.
Will your kid hate you if you spank them? Yeah, for about 5 seconds. Sure, they won't be happy about it, but they'll get over it (quickly, at that) and, later in life, they'll realize why you did it and be thankful, assuming you reserve that severe of a punishment for instances where they're risking severe injury or death to themselves or others. Will they curse your name when you take their toys? Of course they will! But, again, they'll get over it quickly and, later in life, realize why and be thankful, again assuming you reserve that punishment for instances where they've caused (or very seriously caused risk of) loss or damage to someone else's property through their own knowing action (e.g. they stole or purposely broke something). Those are severe punishments, which should be reserved for severe behaviors; they should not be avoided altogether. We, as a species, learn best from pain and loss.
Old age and vision problems will come to all of us, sooner or later.
Bullshit. *pulls trigger* Damn, I missed. You win, this time.
Most successful people do because most successful people are. The ethical trick is to keep to making the best of bad situations caused by others, rather than causing them yourself.
Putting the session ID in the URL prevents people from sharing links without also sharing their session. Likewise with a transaction ID, unless you only allow each transaction to occur once, in which case you break the "back" button. Never allow a user to accidentally share their session and never, never, and I mean never break the browser.
So, within the confines of basic security and usability practices, care to explain this again?
I'm sure there are easy programming jobs out there.
Ahh, there's the problem... You seem to be conflating labor-intensity with difficulty. I suspected as much and even tried to correct for that, but there it is.
I do, in fact, have deadlines; however, I'm also the one who sets those deadlines, unless a business need for a specific feature dictates otherwise. I do realize that puts me in a unique position, but I'm not just speaking for myself here; of the hundreds of developers I communicate with on a regular basis, I know only a handful who work long hours on a regular basis. Interesting that you mention the nightmarish hell that is working for a contracting firm, as that's what those few actually do.
As for flipping burgers, again, never said any of it was hard (though you underestimate the labor involved in flipping burgers for BK with your "just stick it in the machine" comment, the line workers actually assemble the sandwiches and nobody stops moving during their shift, except maybe the manager when they have to do their paperwork); it's easy work, but you're always moving. I'll remind you that the term labor does refer to physical activity; programming is definitely more mentally taxing than flipping burgers, but that was never what we were discussing.
It may just be that the people I know work for companies that value quality over quantity (except for that handful who work for contract firms) and understand that letting their developers take the time to think about what they're doing before they write the code, they can get twice as much good, productive, code written in half the time. sure, overall 1/4-1/8 as much code gets written, but when you consider that 1/2-3/4 of the code not being written is code that would have been rewritten or discarded in the first place, well... it just makes sense to give developers the ability to control their stress levels and think through the problems you're asking them to solve. Maybe it's just that most of the developers I work with on a regular basis work for startups who seem to understand that fact.
Here the voters will punish the government (sometimes) by wiping them out
Then do something about the CRTC so you can finally have real internet up there. Tek Savvy and the other indie providers are great, if you can get Bell and Rogers to stop screwing with their customers and allow them to sell the higher speeds; the CRTC was supposed to do "something" about both of those issues a few years back, but never did. not that the situation is much better on this side of the border, but at least the FCC isn't telling us they're gonna fix the problems, then not doing anything about them; instead, they're telling us they're gonna fix a smaller set of problems that affect a smaller number of us, and actually doing it. Same net effect, but it just feels ever so slightly more honest than what the CRTC is up to.
I didn't know they never expanded the surcharge, and I never dreamed the industry would pull their heads out of their asses for long enough to realize that was the right move. This conversation is turning out to be full of surprises! That idea should still stand for music, though; you just have to make sure to buy tapes and CDs, which still carry the surcharge.
As for going to court, so far the media companies don't seem to be doing more then making threats, often illegally by threatening to sue for much more then they can.
I haven't been following the Voltage scandal for a while now, but last I heard they had gone after a few indie ISPs for records, won, and started filing suits. I actually know someone who was affected by that, but we don't talk often; I do know he was served paperwork regarding the issue, though, so it seems they're doing more than just threatening. Unless my timelines are off, which is fully possible, he was served around the same time the $2K limit went into effect, so they may have dropped it at that point, not wanting to dump money into something with a very limited possibility for return. I know the Voltage thing has been going on for at least a couple years now, but I'm not entirely positive when the $2K limit was put into effect.
No, that AC's plan does actually seem to account for that by charging 20% of the declared value (a declaration which has tax ramifications; worse ones if, during an IRS audit, you are found to have made such a declaration in bad faith) to fund the Copyright Office and provide grants for the creation of new works. Ostensibly, works created under those grants would fall into the public domain immediately, as The People already paid for them via the grant. Additionally, if extension fees are funding the Copyright Office, our tax dollars won't be; that is another net benefit of such a policy.
As for yoru apparent fear that these extensions would be abused, consider that 14-21 years is a damn sight better than the current situation. Also consider that if 20% of the value of the copyright over the prior 7 years of profit is more than the company is willing to spend, that is likely because they don't think they'll make more than that over the next 7, which, let's admit, is the common scenario; that is to say, most copyrights won't see extensions filed under such a system.
Given the above, I can support the idea as-is. Lower the initial term to 7 years and include a provision to allow the Copyright Office to deny extension requests for low-value, no-value, or negative-value works, request proof of declared value when they think someone's pulling their leg, and deny extensions (and report to the IRS) if such proof is not provided or the proof tells a different story, and I'll fund the campaign.
Yes, in Canada (the only country I am aware of with a cap on civil copyright damages) you've been paying a surcharge on all recordable media for nearly two decades. that surcharge goes straight to publishers, whether you're using that blank media to copy their wares or back up your own. I'd say you should damn well have free reign to copy and distribute to your heart's content at that point; you're paying for the privilege.
Canada is in a very unique position and your experience there should not be used as a frame of reference for how copyright works in the rest of the world; the few judgments that have been served thus far outside of Canada have bankrupted the folk who've been slammed with them. If I recall correctly, the $2K cap up there came about in response to an appeal of just such a ruling on your side of the border.
My suggestion? Find out how much the surcharge is on various types of recordable media, buy enough that you've paid $2K in surcharge, keep the receipts, then go on a piracy spree. Bring the receipts to court to show that you've already paid the statutory maximum penalty, plead guilty, and leave. Of course, consult your attorney first (as this post does not constitute legal advice), but there's a fair chance you'd get a scowl from the plaintiff's lawyer and a dirty look from the judge before being excused from the courthouse with no further penalty.