Posts by Updraft102

Re: Shades of the Pentium floating point bug?

We are Pentium of Borg.

Division is futile. You will be approximated.

They have the time, just not the staff. Another one of Nadella's brilliant moves, no doubt annotated in the custom copy of his book inflicted upon Microsoft staff.

We might be able to fix them, but removing their ability to hide behind immunities like the DMCA

The DMCA, AKA "regulation of the web." Is it the solution, or is it the problem?

But increasingly things like Facebook are the ONLY form of contact for people too close too ignore, such as family. Unless you're willing to live as a hermit, in which case you wouldn't be on the Internet in the first place...

Why do the other family members get to be the only ones that can put their foot down when they select the "only" means of contact? They can decide to "only" be contacted via Facebook, and somehow this is supposed to confer upon me a duty to go along with their edict(s)? No, no! Let them comply with mine. I'll never use Facebook. I've got their domains and scripts blacklisted, and I'm going to leave it that way. If people want to communicate with me electronically, there's email. Let them worry about the only forms of contact for people too close to ignore. If they choose not to participate because they don't wish to use email, it's not going to keep me up nights; it's their choice, after all. Why should I waste my time worrying about other people's choices? I can't change them, and I wouldn't want to even if I was able.

Maybe that does make me something of a hermit... yet here I am, using the internet!

"Put somebody who doesn't understand tech in charge of it."

Like Tim Berners Lee?

Is Tim Berners-Lee a branch of government these days, or is it the same old government idiots that would be regulating things if his suggestion were followed?

He may understand the tech that underlies the web, but he seems not to understand the propensity for governments to take problems and make them far worse. Think it's bad with Facebook in charge of Facebook? Try putting some idiot govermment clods in charge of it and see how bad it can really be. It's really remarkable that people keep thinking government can fix things with the ample evidence to the contrary all around us. Having them not get any worse is about the best we can hope for with the government, and even hoping for that usually proves to be overly optimistic.

Re: God you luddites are boring

Trite example but time was it was a complete p-in-the-a to have to take 2 minutes firing up a microwave oven-size computer just to check the frigging email. Now my pocket gives me a gentle nudge when one arrives. Magic!

If you turned your phone off after using it each tiem, it would take some time to boot and be ready before you could get your email too. You're comparing a phone that you leave on all the time to a PC you've elected to turn completely off, for some reason. I haven't habitually turned my PC off in between usages since 1990... back in the days before "sleep" or standby, the things hardly used any energy at idle; just turn the monitor off and leave it until you want to use it again. Now it takes a second to put one to sleep and a second to bring them back.

Re: Majority to use S mode?

MS went too far with Windows 8 -- but are too arrogant to notice or care.

They did indeed, but at least 8 is still an OS that serves the user rather than its creator, under all that metro crap. You can use aftermarket tools to make 8 pretty decent... Classic Shell (whose author has been driven to exhaustion trying to keep up with Windows 10's changes), Old New Explorer, a custom theme of your choice, and a bunch of tweaking (through manual registry edits or programs like Winaero Tweaker), and you've got yourself a decent OS once again. One that doesn't have huge, unwanted updates twice a year, one that gives you control over updates, one that is not in permanent beta because of excessive code churn... it's ridiculous how much work it takes to turn their product (which is there to be used, right?) into something that actually is usable, but at least it is feasible to do so.

Then there's Windows 10. It changes too much, too fast to ever think you've gotten a handle on all the dumb stuff. You get it to where you want it, and then another update comes along and breaks all your changes, reinstalls the crap you took pains to remove, reverts your settings, and the cycle begins anew, only this time the tricks you used to get rid of the crap you just cannot abide may not work, and it may take a few months before anyone discovers a new way of creatively breaking Windows so that it serves the user instead of Microsoft.

Referring back to that original quote in the first line of this reply... it's not that Microsoft is unaware of what people want. It's that they don't find it relevant information! They did learn a lesson from the twin failures of Windows Vista and Windows 8, but it wasn't the one we would have hoped. Rather than them learning, finally, that if you give people a crap version of Windows, those people will reject it, Microsoft learned that if you give people a choice to accept or reject your product, those people may choose to reject it. The lesson they learned was not to stop giving people crap versions of Windows... it was to stop giving people a choice.

Re: I don't know how else I can say this

(You REALLY shouldn't implement new business ideas that you thought up when you were stoned)

Funny, I was thinking something other than being addled by drugs for just a second when you mentioned him being stoned.

Re: Microsoft’s business models require stealing and reselling personal data.

And how many people hating on Win10 actually use it, on a day-to-day basis?

I don't use Windows 10 at all because I hate it. Why would I use something I hate? Before Windows 10, I used to use Windows on a day-to-day basis, and that could have been Windows 10 in there if Windows 10 wasn't the piece of excrement that it is. Now I don't use Windows on a day-to-day basis anymore, as I could see "the last version of Windows ever" didn't leave me any choice.

Maybe those of you bringing your legacy, non-touchscreen devices into Win10, and having a less than fruitful experience, need to try it on the hardware it was designed for?

The hardware it was designed for sucks balls and is vastly inferior to the hardware 99% of Windows users already have (what you call "legacy" hardware). I don't usually resort to such crude language, but sometimes nothing less can get a point across. Windows 10 should have been designed for the hardware people were actually going to use it on. Touchscreens bring nothing useful to the table for non-handheld displays... they're an ergonomic nightmare compared to traditional mice, and even if that was not the case, they're still slower, less precise, and require terrible UI compromises to make them work (to the extent that they do).

If MS keeps designing its OS for a hardware regime that 99% of Windows users don't have, and that most of them wouldn't want anyway, then yeah, of course we're going to call it out for being a piece of crap. As you said, Windows 10 is terrible on mouse and keyboard PCs.

I'm happy with Windows 7, but its days are numbered. Otherwise, I would just stick with it and forget that Windows 10 ever happened. Thing is, I'm also happy with Linux Mint, and it has a much longer life ahead. Microsoft has made the choice for me.

Not just that - the "switch out of" bit suggests that the default for a newly unboxed PC will be S mode. Let's see how that goes down.

And to what lengths will Microsoft go to make sure that the computer OEMs don't change this? People buy Windows PCs to run Windows programs, and a Windows PC that cannot do that is an angry tech support call waiting to happen. Any sensible OEM will want to pre-switch out of their PCs, and MS no doubt knows this-- yet they claim that new PCs sold will be in S mode. What will MS threaten the OEMs with to make sure this happens? Will we see a repeat of the "Do as we say or you won't get any Windows to sell on your new PCs" threat that MS issued during the browser wars to OEMs who wanted to include Netscape on their new PCs?

Re: ... Microsoft Store ...

It'll be the "year of Linux on the desktop" any day now.

It is on my desktop, thanks to Microsoft. They've made Windows 10 so disgustingly bad that I feel dirty just using other, better versions of it. I used to be a Windows defender (no, not the chronically underperforming antimalware or antispyware; note the lower case 'd') when some would say that no one actually uses Windows because they like it; I'd offer that yeah, some of us do.

By the way, did you hear about how Windows 10 is ignoring the "defer feature updates up to one year" setting and force-installing 1709 even on PCs with 11 months or more left on the deferral? Turns out that those controls over updates are really more like suggestions. Even disabling the services associated with updating doesn't work... it just turns them all right back on whenever it wants to.

Can you believe people actually use this shite?

Re: Is this the same

Is this the same FBI that got repeated calls about the Florida school shooter, and did nothing whatsoever?

That's the problem with mass surveillance. They watch everyone, but they learn nothing... there's so much data overload that it becomes impossible to separate the important things from the noise. Every time some terrible crime takes place, the FBI seems to have been aware of the perpetrator, yet it happened anyway. The perp in any given crime would have been known to them because everyone is known to them, but there's so much mass data collection that what they have is never enough for anything proactive... they just have to collect a little more, then they'll know if it is time to act. There's always just that little last bit to collect before they really know.

All the mass surveillance is good for is creating dossiers on every person in the country, so that when the government decides to destroy some of them for its own political reasons, it has plenty of fodder with which it may do so. It goes hand in hand with the millions of pages of laws that exist only to ensure that just living a peaceable life means breaking dozens of laws without even knowing it.

Mass surveillance doesn't prevent or inhibit (real) crime or terrorism or anything similar... it just destroys any remaining bit of liberty and rule of law.

Re: Tinsy winsy little favour

Be careful not to hold it upside down cos that makes all the magic data disappear..

Of course. That's how you reboot it.

Re: Form factors

The only problem is that women relentlessly make fun of me for having such a crap retro phone.

Best defense is a strong offense. Make light of any one of them for being a bleating, fondleslab addicted sheep first. The ones that aren't actually bleating, fondleslab addicted sheep aren't the ones that would make fun of you for having a phone that doesn't meet their standards. For the rest of us, it's just a phone, not a status symbol.

Re: Linux Mint is free

Why are some things in one, and not the other, and vice versa?

And why has it been like this for 6.5 years, since the release of Windows 8?

It's really pretty simple to me. Control Panel (which the settings menu in every Linux DE I have seen is modeled after) for devices with a mouse or touchpad, Settings for those with only a touchscreen. Microsoft continues to make Windows 10 less usable and less intuitive on the desktop or laptop PCs that represent nearly all of the Windows user base, in favor of the mobile market that Microsoft itself has given up on. (If it doesn't make sense to you either, welcome to the club.)

Re: Linux Mint is free

We find technology is usually simple and straightforward, but for the non-techies out there, it isn't. It's complicated, confusing, and difficult. And that's just email.

You click once on the Menu button (Start, if it were Windows), aim the mouse arrow at Internet, then at Thunderbird Mail. Click it once. Thunderbird mail appears... exactly as it looks and acts in Windows. What about that is complicated, confusing, or difficult?

I'm in the process of moving to Linux Mint full-time, since Windows 10 is such a steaming piece of shite that I can't stand to use it even for a few minutes, and it keeps getting worse with every new "feature" update that Microsoft inflicts upon the computing public.

I use Linux almost all of the time now... I'm using it now to write this, for example. Lately, I've only booted Windows for one game, but that one was the last one I will buy that isn't Linux ready off the bat (if it runs perfectly in WINE, that's good enough too). I've shrunk my Windows partitions and embiggened my Linux ones several times now as my need for Linux space exceeds anything for Windows going forward.

I'm aware of some of the things that aren't quite "there" yet in Linux Mint compared to Windows. None of this has been a problem for me, even though I've been using Windows for 27 years and Linux for about one year now. Even so, experience with computers is experience with computers; it's like how a musician who knows one instrument well can pick up a second one very quickly compared to learning the first one.

I also assumed that it would be like you said if I put Mint on a computer belonging to some "regular" user out there, and I made a comment to that effect on this or another site. I got a bunch of replies from people who said they'd done just that, and they get few or no support calls for Linux, but they used to get them all the time for Windows. Having seen how badly Windows can get screwed up, I certainly do not have any problem believing the latter!

I really don't see what would be so hard about using Mint if I were a regular user. Yes, a lot of administrative tasks that can be done using the GUI in Windows are done using the command line in Linux, but those same administrative tasks, even with the GUI, are beyond the scope of the hypothetical "regular" user I am thinking about. For day to day use, it's pretty dang simple... the Cinnamon start menu is very similar to Windows 7's. Point at the thing you want to run and click the mouse button. If you remember what it's called, hit the super (Windows) key and type the first few letters of the name and it will pop up the matches. You minimize it the same way, and it's there in the panel (taskbar) the same way, with the notification icons in the tray the same way. In ordinary day to day use, it is more like classic Windows in a lot of ways than either of the last two attempts Microsoft has made at Windows.

One difference, though, is that if you put it on a bunch of recycled computers, a huge megacorporation won't emerge from the shadows and try to strongarm a prosecutor into destroying you. So, there's that.

Re: Oh, come on

The courts never had a chance to weigh in on this... he pled guilty. That means there was no trial, no evidence presented, none of it. The question would be why he did this... what tricks the prosecutor used to badger an innocent victim into pleading guilty. They typically throw a fusillade of charges against the accused, then plead it down to just the one they wanted him on anyway, as if that were a concession to the accused.

Ever wonder why the US has the highest incarceration rate of any liberal western democracy? I don't. Land of the free, indeed.

Re: Old skool

Also, VHS wasn't crappier. That's the myth that refuses to die...

The original Betamax tapes had a better image than VHS, but they were limited to one hour record/playback time. VHS tapes had twice the run length, and that mattered more to people than the image quality.

Soon, the Betamax run length was extended by slowing the tape speed, but that took with it the superior image quality. The larger VHS cassette size would always give it an advantage; more tape meant longer run time or faster tape speed (image quality).

VHS won because it better fit what consumers wanted, even if you ignore the restrictive licensing by Betamax patent holder Sony relative to VHS's JVC.

Re: Since there's no way out

It's the year of Linux on MY desktops... but so was last year! Others can stay in the Microsoft labor camp if they want, but I can't concern myself with them if they want to keep being abused and forced to service Microsoft's agenda.

So, changing the UI on Windows 10 would make it not utter garbage?

It would be a good first step, but as long as there is still "Windows as a Service" and its insane update schedule, as long as users are denied full control of updates like we had in Windows 7 or 8, as long as there is not a master "telemetry off" switch that really does what it says on the tin (no "minimal" here; when I say OFF I mean OFF) and stays put where the user sets it, Windows 10 will still be garbage.

I don't want any apps on my PC. I run programs... you know, those things that end up being placed in "\Program Files," which is named that for a reason. An "app" is a program designed for a mobile device that has limited resources (local storage and screen space being most notable, though processing power, RAM, and GPU power are also well behind typical "regular" PCs) and that is written to cope with the handicap of not having a hardware keyboard or pointing device.

None of those handicaps that require an "app" to be so limited apply to my PC, so they have no reason to be on such a relatively robust device. I don't need them, I don't want them, and I won't tolerate their presence, no matter how much Microsoft's marketing department tells me it wants me to have them. My PC exists to serve my needs, not those of Microsoft or anyone else.

As long as "bring back the UI from $older_version_of_windows includes deep-sixing everything UWP or Acrylic and returning to a full Win32 UI, these are the other things that need to be fixed before 10 stops being complete crap, Microsoft.

I don't know if I would ever go back to Microsoft-land after what they have done. Even if they saw the light and fixed all the things I've highlighted here, I don't know if the trust that has been lost can be overcome. I never wanted to leave Windows; I've been using it since 3.0, so it's been my "home" for more than a quarter of a century. It's never been perfect, but I have spent most of that time thinking that it's really pretty decent, particularly in its NT-derived forms. It has its flaws, of course, but all things considered, I found XP and 7 to be the best choices for me, ahead of Linux and OSX/MacOS.

Windows 10, though... no, just no. As Hall and Oates said, "I can't go for that." As the old adage goes, with appropriate substitutions, "I didn't leave Windows... Windows left me." From the start of my relationship with Windows, it was designed strictly for the PC platform, including a hardware keyboard and a mouse, along with a reasonably large screen (though in 1990 that meant 14 inches). That's what Windows has always been, and what I still expect now. The last version of Windows built to those specifications was Windows 7... after that, Windows left me behind in pursuit of mobile users that it could never get (and even though MS has conceded loss in that market, it still insists on staying the course).

I'm not getting on the Windows 10 train, Microsoft. I know you think that you're so big that you can bully and force people to accept the utter crap you offer, but that doesn't work on all of us (and over time, I would guess most of us will tire of it). Thanks to your Windows 10 efforts, Microsoft, I'm typing this from Linux right now on my laptop, a PC that now spends 97% of its time in Linux (Windows is still there as dual boot, but I hardly ever use it). I still have five years of life left in Windows 8.1 (heavily modified to get the stupid out), and I might still be using that if you hadn't pushed "the last version of Windows ever" so heavily. I thank you for making your intentions so clear, Microsoft; with GWX and the continued efforts to force Windows users into the Windows 10 prison, I can clearly see there's no future for me with Windows. As long as the insane update schedule and permanent beta quality rule the day, Windows 10 doesn't even exist for me as an option.

Won't lie, I spent 3 days with my Windows 10 laptop at work learning powershell commands to strip out all the unnecessary bloatware that came with it.

And then when the next update comes rolling down the pike in a few months, they'll all get undone, and there will be enough changes that they probably won't work again. All your settings will have to be checked to make sure they've not been reset... it may take some time to work all the stupidity out of it once again. By the time that you do, it will be time for another update, and it begins again.

Re: What Microsoft should have done

The last version of CS is still available for download, last I checked.

And it will presumably always work as well as it does now on Windows versions prior to 10, which are the only versions of Windows that even approach being usable. It (Win 10) just keeps on getting worse and worse... ironic that the one program that made Windows 10 palatable to many people was ended by Windows 10 being what it is. Unless the open source community steps up and continues the development, of course.

Re: 'OEM keys work just fine'

Any old key you find on the net will do for downloading the Windows installer from MS. They don't check them as carefully as they do during activation (I would imagine any key you find floating around the net is already blacklisted for activation).

Re: "Tinkering with WINE"

Windows is "free" in the sense that it comes preinstalled on every PC ever built,

It never came preinstalled on any of the PCs I built. My laptop came with Vista... past its sell-by date for sure, and my other one came with 10, which is garbage and unfit for any purpose.

I use WINE pretty often on that old Vista era laptop. Works great with the stuff I have running on it (one of the programs actually runs better in WINE than in native Windows; fancy that)... why bother to shut down, boot up, use the program, shut down, boot up... when I can just run them in Linux?

The idea is to get away from Windows... If I was interested in using Windows for those things that don't have Linux versions, I might as well just use Windows, period. And if that Windows is 10, that's not happening.

Re: Re:Figure out your next step...

You can get the Windows 7 install DVD from Microsoft... all you need is the product key, which you'd still need with the torrented version (unless it's been cracked somehow).