Slashdot Mirror


User: mcgrew

mcgrew's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
21,844
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 21,844

  1. Re:Hotmail all over again on Skype Crashes and Burns In Worldwide Outage · · Score: 1

    Not just dropping support, but ruining the product. I started not liking MS when they bough FoxPro. AFAIK it may still be on the market, but version 8 was completely unusable.

    I started liking them even less when I installed XP and half of my old programs would no linger run.

    If I were a Skype user, MS buying them out would make me NOT a Skype user.

    Today I only interact with MS at work; no MS products in my house. I'm looking forward to retirement, when I won't have to deal with MS at all.

  2. Re:Summary on Experts Say Gestural Interfaces Are a Step Backwards In Usability · · Score: 1

    "Discoverability" was in the Webster's dictionary since 1913. And I agree with him, plain text is always the easiest. I've always hated unlabeled icons.

  3. Re:Summary on Experts Say Gestural Interfaces Are a Step Backwards In Usability · · Score: 1

    The bigest problem I have with MS products is the lack of consistency, and I don't just mean not following standards. Why can't they keep menu items in the same menu in an upgraded app? Buy a new version of a program you're familiar with and you ALWAYS have as big a learning curve as if you'd bought a competing product. They don't follow anyone's standards, not even their own.

  4. Re:Summary on Experts Say Gestural Interfaces Are a Step Backwards In Usability · · Score: 1

    You didn't RTFA, did you? Here are the useability problems TFA discusses in a nutshell:

    Non-existing signifiers
    Misleading signifiers
    Feedback
    Consistency and Standards
    Discoverability
    Scalability
    Reliability
    Lack of undo

    It's a good article that goes into detail, and anyone designing any interface for any device should read it.

  5. Re:patents on Experts Say Gestural Interfaces Are a Step Backwards In Usability · · Score: 1

    Apple and Google are violating Motorola's patent for "incredibly stupid UI design". What idiot decided that menu items should move around? Hitting a 3 might bring up tbookmarks, or it might bookmark the page you're on. Nothing in my phone is consistant, but text messages are the worst. Rather than a list of opened and uniopened messages like everyone's used to, they've got "conversations" with no indication that one of the "conversations" has an unread message.

    The hardware is great, the UI is straight from hell.

    But the worst UI mistake all the manufacturers make is shoddy documentation, and it's not just phones, it's all electronics.

  6. Re:Not a fan on Mandatory Automotive Black Boxes May Be On the Way · · Score: 1

    Maybe with some cars, but occasionally they put radars with big readouts on the roads here in Illinois, and my speedometer has always matched the radar, except when I had a low tire. In those cases my speedomer showed a fster speed than the radar.

  7. Re:I agree on Mandatory Automotive Black Boxes May Be On the Way · · Score: 1

    Not in the US. In Illinois, it's illegal to drive with the flashers on.

  8. Re:I agree on Mandatory Automotive Black Boxes May Be On the Way · · Score: 1

    You (and others) are confusing "doing fifty in the left lane" with "doing the speed limit when everyone else is speeding". Nowhere I know of will you get a ticket for doing less than the maximum speed limit as long as you're going faster than the minimum in the right lane.

    I use my cruise on the highway, and I'm not going to speed up for you, nor will I slow down unless I have to. If I'm passing someone who's going 1 mph slower than me, tough. You'll just have to wait until I'm around him -- I'm not wasting my gasoline because you're not smart enough to leave for your appointment on time. Your lack of planning and your childish, selfish impatience are your own problems, not mine. Mine is the high price of gasoline, and I'm going to use as little of it as possible.

    If someone's passing you on the right, you're not going too slow, you're in the wrong lane. If someone's 1 car length behind you at 65 mph, there's a suicidal idiot behind you.

  9. Re:Outpaced by other legislation you mean on New Bill Pushes For Warrants To Access Cloud Data · · Score: 1

    Actually, I don't think they should be allowed to, but they are and they do. We live in the world we live in, and if you have a cell phone (who but my eighty year old dad doesn't?), why not use it?

  10. Re:Next we will all be required to be chipped on Mandatory Automotive Black Boxes May Be On the Way · · Score: 1

    Drug: a chemical substance that affects the processes of the mind or body. Turkey contains a drug, Wasabi fits the dictionary definition of a drug. I don't know of any effect on the mind or body produced by Thyme or Basil, they're just AFAIK flavoring agents.

  11. Re:Computers are infallible... on Mandatory Automotive Black Boxes May Be On the Way · · Score: 1

    I can't agree; "common sense" would say that a device is supposed to do what it's designed and sold to do. A GPS that will lead you into a situation like that is incredibly bad design. It was the engineer's lack of common sense that led to the tragedy.

    You have to design devices with the knowledge that half the people who buy them will have two digit IQs, as I keep reminding myself when I curse the idiots on the road. Stupid people can't help being stupid.

  12. Re:Ray LaHood on Mandatory Automotive Black Boxes May Be On the Way · · Score: 1

    I cheered when Obama gave him the job. It meant LaHood was no longer my congressman.

    He's aptly named; seen "Pale Rider?" The bad guy's named LaHood in that movie. As bad a transportation chief he is, he was a far worse congressman.

  13. Re:Motor Law on Mandatory Automotive Black Boxes May Be On the Way · · Score: 1

    If all he'd said was "For those of you who don't get this reference here is the wikipedia article on the Rush song" I'd have agreed with you 100%.

  14. Re:Next we will all be required to be chipped on Mandatory Automotive Black Boxes May Be On the Way · · Score: 1

    It could be a combination as well. Coffee? Beer? Antibiotics? Aspirin? All drugs.

    BTW, we're offtopic (hitting the "no bonus" checkboxes but I don't think they're working).

  15. Re:Next we will all be required to be chipped on Mandatory Automotive Black Boxes May Be On the Way · · Score: 1

    You seem to be the only one here mentioning religion. The fact that the guy was a preacher has nothing to do with it at all. The worst thing that can happen to anyone is to outlive their children -- it's the living who suffer from death, not the dead. You don't think seeing your own children suffer the most horribly painful death imaginable would be terrible for anyone? Have you no empathy at all, sir?

    However, I don't doubt your faith a bit, you seem to be utterly convinced that no god is possible. That depends on faith. Without proof, or a religious experience, only agnosticism is logical.

    Troll here often? Or were you trying to be funny?

  16. Re:Outpaced by other legislation you mean on New Bill Pushes For Warrants To Access Cloud Data · · Score: 1

    In some jobs they DO listen in on your phone calls. Even if using email for personal use wasn't against company policy, I'd still use my own email just because I don't trust my employer. These days, why would you need to use your desk phone (and only we who wwork at desks have desk phones; construction workers, linemen, etc don't have them) when you have your own phone in your pocket that it's illegal for your employer to listen in on?

    The question shouldn't be "why use your own phone" but "why use your employer's phone or email when you have a phone and email in your pocket?" My email and possibly work phone is subject to monitoring, my private possessions are not.

  17. Re:Motor Law on Mandatory Automotive Black Boxes May Be On the Way · · Score: 1

    No, that was informative. I'm familiar with the song, but not the Road and Track reference.

  18. Re:Limitation on Mandatory Automotive Black Boxes May Be On the Way · · Score: 1

    [citation needed]

  19. Re:Computers are infallible... on Mandatory Automotive Black Boxes May Be On the Way · · Score: 1
  20. Re:Next we will all be required to be chipped on Mandatory Automotive Black Boxes May Be On the Way · · Score: 1

    After all, you're not going to give the right to drive an 18-wheeler to an inexperienced person

    You are if you're George Ryan. One of the drivers who bought his CDL, never having driven a truck before and unable to read English killed an entire family in a fiery crash.

  21. Re:Next we will all be required to be chipped on Mandatory Automotive Black Boxes May Be On the Way · · Score: 1

    It's not just New York, it's everywhere. I have a friend who used to drive a cab, and she told me half the cabbies were crackheads. And the cops drive worse than anyone else. I've seen school busses run red lights, saw one last year that had just caused a crash after running a light -- with kids on board.

    I'm looking forware to the day when computers drive our cars for us. I expected it to happen over twn years ago.

  22. Re:Haha. on Should a Web Startup Go Straight To the Cloud? · · Score: 1

    Some come to troll and try to piss people off. Actually, sometimes I do run across an interesting article here, but usually I just come for the comments.

  23. Re:What a load of bollocks on New Bill Pushes For Warrants To Access Cloud Data · · Score: 1

    Actually, there are few if any places in the US that aren't prone to some natural disaster, whether tornados, floods, hurricanes, or earthquakes. I was in a hurricane in Deleware in the early 70s, and a tornado in 2006 here in Illinois. If you're never been in a tornado it's impossible to imagine the power and destruction (please pardon the rambling style of the journal).

    The tornado in Joplin tore down double walled brick houses. It's like being in a giant blender. And yes, the poor suffer most, as they're usually in less well constructed houses, or even trailors.

  24. Re:Outpaced by other legislation you mean on New Bill Pushes For Warrants To Access Cloud Data · · Score: 1

    I think it should only apply to corporations, not privately owned companies. A sole owner of a company is responsible for that company and what it does, stockholders in a corporation have no such responsibility. If a corporation kills a dozen people and is sued out of business, the stockholders lose only their investment, while a private owner is responsible for all the damages and could be ruined for life.

    As to what you do on the job, if your job requires you to break the law, maybe you should look for a different one.

    As to "economic liberty", that's an interesting concept. To me, economic liberty means a multimillionaire has more rights than me.

  25. Re:What a load of bollocks on New Bill Pushes For Warrants To Access Cloud Data · · Score: 1

    Apart from a few poor people being blown up

    Maybe in the UK, but where I live you're in far more danger of being blown down.