I can't say that I've sampled much in the way of Canadian media outlets, but in neighboring U.S.A. being "rigorous, robust and respected" has not been any kind of priority in a long while, and what sheer veil they may have propped in front of that reality for a while they let drop a couple of years ago when a big election went in an unexpected direction. All reporting outlets in the U.S.A. are now wearing their biases on their sleeves. Until media outlets can be forced to staff and promote from the "Left" and "Right" equally, then no individual outlet can be even remotely respected and the best we can do is what we're doing right now, having the two big biases battle it out with their various lies, spins and checks... I don't see how going out and telling us to blindly accept whatever we're told is supposed to be taken as a good thing, or even expected to make the person saying it come off any way other than just dumb/incompetent...
(It is requiring I be more original in my comment, so...) Apple isn't an industry leader unless we let them be, the notch should have gone down as a stupid one-off, rather the rest of the industry is deciding to validate that decision, and will probably result in it sticking around for a good while longer than it originally would have. Following the leader isn't innovating (nor is it a good idea to anoint a competitor as a leader).
If you've ever been to Japan, especially iconic locations like Tokyo, you'd pretty quickly realize that, for how otherwise clean and tidy the Japanese are, the rats nests of power lines depicted in anime are basically true to life. Ubiquitous powerlines (even the type seemingly haphazardly strung between buildings like neglected spider webs) are a normal sight there, so when mirroring or representing reality, it isn't a surprising detail to include to give just that little extra grounding. For those on the outside looking in, it could seem exaggerated, but it is hardly the case.
I had a friend back when it was really popular that steadfastly insisted on using the official AIM client, that is, until it woke him up in the middle of the night with ads, he was on Trillian in no time flat after that. Hard to say if it is really OUR fault their client didn't see more usage, they kind of had their chance on that one and blew it themselves. It is hardly anarchist to want to use something that just works, they still could have leveraged us in some other way, they had an installed base with active user accounts, they could have drawn us in to some other neat concept(s) down the line, with one login that can do many things (look at Google's umbrella of services that require just a single sign in). But no, they really AOL'd that one.
(Oh, and the return I did provide was in keeping other people active on the service [I'm not in control of how they connect], sort of like how my friend, um... going away for a little while... negatively affects my needs of the service, my leaving would have given others less reason to stay. Not that anyone is stupid enough to run their client... if they even offer an official, up to date client anymore.)
Anyway, I had been talking to people in an IRC group (I'm doing my part in keeping that alive, too!) just recently about how my need of AIM might actually go away before the service does... and now they're apparently trying to beat me to the punch, but luckily my friend's unlucky break has made the transition much easier (but not for him... hopefully he hasn't dropped any soap yet).
I've kept active on this service for many years now, through third party clients like Pidgin in Linux. I've never been a supporter of AOL, but use of the AIM service was almost standard for a while there, and I've since used it to converse with a number of friends who have thus far refused to embrace many other options. With the death of AIM, there's a real chance that my communication with some of these stubborn friends will take a step backward to indirect, less immediate interaction such as email. The only consolation of all of this, strangely, is that one of the main persons I've kept in most frequent contact with through AIM just got himself a prison sentence of a duration I'm not yet certain of (possibly multi year), so I've unexpectedly just lost one of my main needs for the service already this last month. So, strangely good timing, but really it is overall unfortunate, especially since they should just hand the service over to the open source crowd and let it grow in unexpected ways or die naturally, rather than just killing off something that not everyone has an acceptable alternative to.
People keep saying everyone was dead the whole time on LOST, which is just the most inaccurate interpretation possible. Here's an actual spoiler for you, not the usual rant from people who ether didn't watch the show or really weren't smart or attentive enough to follow what was going on: at the end of the last episode everyone met in the afterlife, yes, BUT that was AFTER everyone died in their own way whenever their own time came, and "time" in the afterlife is portrayed as non linear to our living perception of time. Everything that happened on and off the island in the show happened to those characters while they were alive. The afterlife depiction was about friends waiting for everyone (and they very clearly stated how much longer those who stayed behind on the island as its keepers did in fact LIVE). The point is everyone dies eventually, and these people had such a strong bond that they didn't want to pass beyond a purgatory type of afterlife and go on to whatever is further beyond until they could meet up with their friends and loved ones again. The all met up and went on together. But everything in the show happened in, and mattered to, the living world, they just had an artsy statement at the end about how everyone and everything in the world dies eventually.
Watch the show, it was quite good, lots of really interesting details throughout to piece together how everything and everyone across the whole show are deeply related.
Rather, I'd like for the people that make the theater going experience terrible to jump on methods like this and just stay home, instead of ruining things for other people. Bad, overly-entitled theater goers who do nothing but distract and annoy (and in some cases even through smell) are a huge part of the love loss with the theater (that and sub-par Hollywood movie writing standards). Sure, maybe the multiplexes would suffer from stuff like this, but they've had their good run, perhaps it is time to scale them back and make a concerted effort to focus on true classic theater experiences rather than attracting and awing the fickle masses (whom will never be pleased anyway and always demand more useless gimmicks to keep coming).
At the same time, I'm still surprised AMC's texting-friendly screenings got shot down as soundly as it did... Perhaps not all hope is yet lost for humanity... though all that supported it should definitely stay home and stream movies, so they can text about their superiority to their hearts content, at a safe distance from the rest of us.
Screw it, let's just do away with it on the principal alone that no one knows how to read, write or say the term correctly. Dump it and go with one consistent time (probably just non-DST year-round, rather than switching to UTC), so there's one less thing for people to have to know, as most get it wrong anyway.
I'm actually pretty impressed with the responsiveness and smart actions (so far) of the new slashdot overlords. Keep up all the work you're doing that is good (and keep nipping anything that isn't) and you'll find more of us sticking around.
At the same time, I wasn't negative about auto-refresh, except for the whole unexpected aspect of it... Maybe a notification that there is new content, to manually refresh to see, would be a good mid-way solution? Or an auto-refresh opt-in?
Open hardware and software is great and could be very useful and successful in the router space, but you end off by teasing high prices though you were using Raspberry Pi and Arduino for comparisons. Those products are designed to be straightforward and cost not much more than necessary so as to spread adoption. If you plan on charging extra for the open aspect of what you plan to make (or if the cost is due to making hardware to compete with the high end router market; completely unclear which it is without clicking through), then you need to find something else to compare your product with. You say it is the router equivalent of Raspberry Pi and Arduino, people will think affordable, then laugh at you and walk away when they find out otherwise.
But yes, a good, affordable networking solution that brings security through openness is always welcome; just approach it right (or maybe do something different than what we've settled with from router manufacturers, if you don't go the dirt cheap hardware route).
Not but a few hours after this hit Slashdot did Oklahoma have a storm system go through that produced at least 2 small tornadoes (incredibly rare for December, I might add).
You might want to give this a try; in my limited usage over the weekend, this HTML5 method feels a lot smoother than Silverlight ever did under Windows 7. Not saying it will replace a Netflix "appliance", but you still might be pleasantly surprised.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... (Sorry, only good clip I could find was of the dub, but when Isamu speaks, it worth mentioning he is voiced by a young Bryan Cranston.)
A lot of that was me being polite, but in all fairness they did put obvious, if somewhat misguided, effort into the redesign and that should be considered when tearing into someone's work, besides, kindness can often get one further than rudeness or hostility, so I try to lean toward polite. But to respond in full to your question, it is a little more spacious, cleaner and modern looking in classic view (still want my darned from/department jokes visible), comments seem less filtered/condensed and easier for me to follow (easier still if they'd included the full Comment Subject on replies, rather than just "Re:", maybe also include the lines we currently have on the side that help clarify nested comments) (and if all the information about the person posting comments wasn't just condensed down to a name/link and time. Where is the member number, where is the post permalink?), and that top bar thingy stays at the top of the screen (though it doesn't have a search bar, so it isn't nearly as useful as it should be, and widescreens or low resolution screens probably wouldn't appreciate that vertical space always being taken up...), but beyond that, there really isn't anything that increases efficiency for someone trying to keep track of nerd news, or even much about it that is uniquely Slashdot anymore. Hopefully they will steer away from the "generic news site" design this beta teases by thinking hard about what is really the heart and soul of Slashdot. Efficient and useful should always trump flashy at a nerd news site, and I hope they figure that out.
Feels good to know my opinion was heard and considered, thanks for letting me know you're listening; don't hesitate to contact me if there's anything else you want an honest opinion (TM) on.
Some of the new things are nice, but there is a lot of change just for the sake of change, which I hope will be reconsidered.
First off, basically all view modes expect a person to click on every single story to see EVERYTHING we can usually see with the current layout, even classic won't show the "From.....Department" bit unless you click on it (and that is one of my favorite things to look at when I browse the posts). I'd say first and foremost I want that from/department part to be visible at a higher level...
Headline view, that is just useless, it is all the worst parts of the other views, and with even more need to click through and waste our time. It is like a sad excuse for an RSS feed. Chuck it.
Standard view, what is with that blob of stories at the top (the text of which is hard to read on top of everything), if it was just promoting some top stories, that'd be one thing, but it instead rips those stories out of where they'd chronologically fall and has them only exist in that blob. Unacceptable. Also, having most of the Slashdot article readable but not ALL of it? Inexcusable, there is no reason to force someone to load a new page just to finish reading a mere summary. The giant pictures above SOME stories... they might be okay, if they were more relevant more of the time (there are some pretty sad examples on display today), overall, I could do without it, and it would be more bandwidth friendly, which Slashdot didn't use to have in issue with before.
Forced width, unacceptable, just scale the page accordingly rather than this insanity.
It is kind of cleaner, kind of nicer, but not enough of what makes Slashdot Slashdot is making its way over, please keep more of what makes this place great, rather than making the site a generic mess, especially one that doesn't give enough information up front.
Title actually applies to your post. Well... almost: Windows 8.1 may be adding a "Start Button" but not the "Start Menu", which is what people were actually asking for. All they're doing is giving you something visual to click on to get to that Metro Start Splash Page Thingy, instead of having to know to mysteriously mouse off the screen in the bottom left and click. Past that, you have a reasonable point.
Slashdot Mirror
I can't say that I've sampled much in the way of Canadian media outlets, but in neighboring U.S.A. being "rigorous, robust and respected" has not been any kind of priority in a long while, and what sheer veil they may have propped in front of that reality for a while they let drop a couple of years ago when a big election went in an unexpected direction. All reporting outlets in the U.S.A. are now wearing their biases on their sleeves. Until media outlets can be forced to staff and promote from the "Left" and "Right" equally, then no individual outlet can be even remotely respected and the best we can do is what we're doing right now, having the two big biases battle it out with their various lies, spins and checks... I don't see how going out and telling us to blindly accept whatever we're told is supposed to be taken as a good thing, or even expected to make the person saying it come off any way other than just dumb/incompetent...
No.
(It is requiring I be more original in my comment, so...) Apple isn't an industry leader unless we let them be, the notch should have gone down as a stupid one-off, rather the rest of the industry is deciding to validate that decision, and will probably result in it sticking around for a good while longer than it originally would have. Following the leader isn't innovating (nor is it a good idea to anoint a competitor as a leader).
If you've ever been to Japan, especially iconic locations like Tokyo, you'd pretty quickly realize that, for how otherwise clean and tidy the Japanese are, the rats nests of power lines depicted in anime are basically true to life. Ubiquitous powerlines (even the type seemingly haphazardly strung between buildings like neglected spider webs) are a normal sight there, so when mirroring or representing reality, it isn't a surprising detail to include to give just that little extra grounding. For those on the outside looking in, it could seem exaggerated, but it is hardly the case.
Why would they buy out a competitor just to set it free to grow larger?
Obviously AIM isn't an aspect of the buyout they were particularly interested in...
I had a friend back when it was really popular that steadfastly insisted on using the official AIM client, that is, until it woke him up in the middle of the night with ads, he was on Trillian in no time flat after that. Hard to say if it is really OUR fault their client didn't see more usage, they kind of had their chance on that one and blew it themselves. It is hardly anarchist to want to use something that just works, they still could have leveraged us in some other way, they had an installed base with active user accounts, they could have drawn us in to some other neat concept(s) down the line, with one login that can do many things (look at Google's umbrella of services that require just a single sign in). But no, they really AOL'd that one.
(Oh, and the return I did provide was in keeping other people active on the service [I'm not in control of how they connect], sort of like how my friend, um... going away for a little while... negatively affects my needs of the service, my leaving would have given others less reason to stay. Not that anyone is stupid enough to run their client... if they even offer an official, up to date client anymore.)
Anyway, I had been talking to people in an IRC group (I'm doing my part in keeping that alive, too!) just recently about how my need of AIM might actually go away before the service does... and now they're apparently trying to beat me to the punch, but luckily my friend's unlucky break has made the transition much easier (but not for him... hopefully he hasn't dropped any soap yet).
I've kept active on this service for many years now, through third party clients like Pidgin in Linux. I've never been a supporter of AOL, but use of the AIM service was almost standard for a while there, and I've since used it to converse with a number of friends who have thus far refused to embrace many other options. With the death of AIM, there's a real chance that my communication with some of these stubborn friends will take a step backward to indirect, less immediate interaction such as email. The only consolation of all of this, strangely, is that one of the main persons I've kept in most frequent contact with through AIM just got himself a prison sentence of a duration I'm not yet certain of (possibly multi year), so I've unexpectedly just lost one of my main needs for the service already this last month. So, strangely good timing, but really it is overall unfortunate, especially since they should just hand the service over to the open source crowd and let it grow in unexpected ways or die naturally, rather than just killing off something that not everyone has an acceptable alternative to.
People keep saying everyone was dead the whole time on LOST, which is just the most inaccurate interpretation possible. Here's an actual spoiler for you, not the usual rant from people who ether didn't watch the show or really weren't smart or attentive enough to follow what was going on: at the end of the last episode everyone met in the afterlife, yes, BUT that was AFTER everyone died in their own way whenever their own time came, and "time" in the afterlife is portrayed as non linear to our living perception of time. Everything that happened on and off the island in the show happened to those characters while they were alive. The afterlife depiction was about friends waiting for everyone (and they very clearly stated how much longer those who stayed behind on the island as its keepers did in fact LIVE). The point is everyone dies eventually, and these people had such a strong bond that they didn't want to pass beyond a purgatory type of afterlife and go on to whatever is further beyond until they could meet up with their friends and loved ones again. The all met up and went on together. But everything in the show happened in, and mattered to, the living world, they just had an artsy statement at the end about how everyone and everything in the world dies eventually.
Watch the show, it was quite good, lots of really interesting details throughout to piece together how everything and everyone across the whole show are deeply related.
Exactly the kind of comment I was combing these comments to find after reading that name!
What does this mean for Windows versions other than XP, 7 or 10?
Yeah, I think I've seen this before; doesn't go well if the old people want to go to the beach.
This should be replaced by a Canadian vessel, named--in keeping with Star Trek numbering--the Enterprise-eh.
Rather, I'd like for the people that make the theater going experience terrible to jump on methods like this and just stay home, instead of ruining things for other people. Bad, overly-entitled theater goers who do nothing but distract and annoy (and in some cases even through smell) are a huge part of the love loss with the theater (that and sub-par Hollywood movie writing standards). Sure, maybe the multiplexes would suffer from stuff like this, but they've had their good run, perhaps it is time to scale them back and make a concerted effort to focus on true classic theater experiences rather than attracting and awing the fickle masses (whom will never be pleased anyway and always demand more useless gimmicks to keep coming).
At the same time, I'm still surprised AMC's texting-friendly screenings got shot down as soundly as it did... Perhaps not all hope is yet lost for humanity... though all that supported it should definitely stay home and stream movies, so they can text about their superiority to their hearts content, at a safe distance from the rest of us.
Screw it, let's just do away with it on the principal alone that no one knows how to read, write or say the term correctly. Dump it and go with one consistent time (probably just non-DST year-round, rather than switching to UTC), so there's one less thing for people to have to know, as most get it wrong anyway.
I may well stand corrected here.
I don't think I'd ever want to see Microsoft push into cell phones again, it is bad enough they're everywhere they're at now...
I'm actually pretty impressed with the responsiveness and smart actions (so far) of the new slashdot overlords. Keep up all the work you're doing that is good (and keep nipping anything that isn't) and you'll find more of us sticking around.
At the same time, I wasn't negative about auto-refresh, except for the whole unexpected aspect of it... Maybe a notification that there is new content, to manually refresh to see, would be a good mid-way solution? Or an auto-refresh opt-in?
Anyway, thanks for actually listening to us.
Open hardware and software is great and could be very useful and successful in the router space, but you end off by teasing high prices though you were using Raspberry Pi and Arduino for comparisons. Those products are designed to be straightforward and cost not much more than necessary so as to spread adoption. If you plan on charging extra for the open aspect of what you plan to make (or if the cost is due to making hardware to compete with the high end router market; completely unclear which it is without clicking through), then you need to find something else to compare your product with. You say it is the router equivalent of Raspberry Pi and Arduino, people will think affordable, then laugh at you and walk away when they find out otherwise.
But yes, a good, affordable networking solution that brings security through openness is always welcome; just approach it right (or maybe do something different than what we've settled with from router manufacturers, if you don't go the dirt cheap hardware route).
Not but a few hours after this hit Slashdot did Oklahoma have a storm system go through that produced at least 2 small tornadoes (incredibly rare for December, I might add).
You might want to give this a try; in my limited usage over the weekend, this HTML5 method feels a lot smoother than Silverlight ever did under Windows 7. Not saying it will replace a Netflix "appliance", but you still might be pleasantly surprised.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
(Sorry, only good clip I could find was of the dub, but when Isamu speaks, it worth mentioning he is voiced by a young Bryan Cranston.)
A lot of that was me being polite, but in all fairness they did put obvious, if somewhat misguided, effort into the redesign and that should be considered when tearing into someone's work, besides, kindness can often get one further than rudeness or hostility, so I try to lean toward polite. But to respond in full to your question, it is a little more spacious, cleaner and modern looking in classic view (still want my darned from/department jokes visible), comments seem less filtered/condensed and easier for me to follow (easier still if they'd included the full Comment Subject on replies, rather than just "Re:", maybe also include the lines we currently have on the side that help clarify nested comments) (and if all the information about the person posting comments wasn't just condensed down to a name/link and time. Where is the member number, where is the post permalink?), and that top bar thingy stays at the top of the screen (though it doesn't have a search bar, so it isn't nearly as useful as it should be, and widescreens or low resolution screens probably wouldn't appreciate that vertical space always being taken up...), but beyond that, there really isn't anything that increases efficiency for someone trying to keep track of nerd news, or even much about it that is uniquely Slashdot anymore. Hopefully they will steer away from the "generic news site" design this beta teases by thinking hard about what is really the heart and soul of Slashdot. Efficient and useful should always trump flashy at a nerd news site, and I hope they figure that out.
Feels good to know my opinion was heard and considered, thanks for letting me know you're listening; don't hesitate to contact me if there's anything else you want an honest opinion (TM) on.
Some of the new things are nice, but there is a lot of change just for the sake of change, which I hope will be reconsidered.
First off, basically all view modes expect a person to click on every single story to see EVERYTHING we can usually see with the current layout, even classic won't show the "From.....Department" bit unless you click on it (and that is one of my favorite things to look at when I browse the posts). I'd say first and foremost I want that from/department part to be visible at a higher level...
Headline view, that is just useless, it is all the worst parts of the other views, and with even more need to click through and waste our time. It is like a sad excuse for an RSS feed. Chuck it.
Standard view, what is with that blob of stories at the top (the text of which is hard to read on top of everything), if it was just promoting some top stories, that'd be one thing, but it instead rips those stories out of where they'd chronologically fall and has them only exist in that blob. Unacceptable. Also, having most of the Slashdot article readable but not ALL of it? Inexcusable, there is no reason to force someone to load a new page just to finish reading a mere summary. The giant pictures above SOME stories... they might be okay, if they were more relevant more of the time (there are some pretty sad examples on display today), overall, I could do without it, and it would be more bandwidth friendly, which Slashdot didn't use to have in issue with before.
Forced width, unacceptable, just scale the page accordingly rather than this insanity.
It is kind of cleaner, kind of nicer, but not enough of what makes Slashdot Slashdot is making its way over, please keep more of what makes this place great, rather than making the site a generic mess, especially one that doesn't give enough information up front.
How are Windows 8 AND Office supposed to fit comfortably (and be usable) on 64GB of storage, much less 32GB?
Title actually applies to your post. Well... almost: Windows 8.1 may be adding a "Start Button" but not the "Start Menu", which is what people were actually asking for. All they're doing is giving you something visual to click on to get to that Metro Start Splash Page Thingy, instead of having to know to mysteriously mouse off the screen in the bottom left and click. Past that, you have a reasonable point.