It was terrible before too, if you wiggled the mouse too much and you were 7 layers deep into the heirarchy the start menu would close or flip over to another folder, and you'd have to start all over...it was usability garbage.

The replacement in vista was still tedious, but the previous incarnation was gouge-your-eyes-out-bad if you had to navigate to something that was deep.

Lol, well said.

However, to be fair to MS, they didn't "remove it" they revamped it. They rightfully identified that there was a ton of functionality jammed into it, and that it was a shitty UI for most of it, while simultaneously its primary design driver was a vestigial hierarchical folder structure from Windows 95 that really was quite hideous and unusable, and rarely used.

Every one used the start menu to shutdown, to get to control panels etc, to access frequently used and pinned apps, and to search.

shutdown? because that's where it was. No real need for it to be there relative to anywhere else.
control panels same thing. So they moved them (and also added them to right click start menu).
pinned apps... you can still create taskbar menus and pin apps etc in win8.

search -- there's two types of search:
-- type one ... "power user quick launch" . For example type cmd to launch command or pow to launch powershell, etc etc... the win7 start menu worked well for this

-- type two -- actual search. Where you want to find something that you don't know what its called, or to find a document. Having your whole search interface in a small popup in the corner that was liable to disappear on you at random was silly and useless. The win7 start menu sucks for real search.

Finally... heirarchical start menu browsing... was clumsy in Windows 95 and all but useless in a modern PC. Nobody used it unless they had to, and browsing multiple levels of nested folders was clumsy.

The start screen in windows 8 ... was better for search. And the other commands were relocated. The problem with windows 8 was simply that the new locations were non-obvious. (how do I shutdown?) And the "type one" quick search-launch functionality was now really clutzy switching to a full screen app for quick launch makes no sense. (And really the whole 'go full screen' was a mistake. The old start menu was broken... but the new one was also broken, better in some ways, but worse in most.

But they were looking for a solution to a definite problem. Anyone who honestly looks at the windows 7 start menu has to acknowledge that it does too much, and does MUCH of it poorly. It needed attention.

Unfortunately windows 8 was a step in mostly the wrong directions. Too touch centric. Too much key functionality hidden off screen. Charms bar was just bad. Not having window border controls for mouse users was just bad. Defaulting to using 'modern ui' for viewing pictures etc was just bad. 8.1 cleaned up a lot of that, but it was still not ideal. Too much was driven by the tablet/mobile design rather than really trying to solve the problem for desktop users in a way that made sense for desktop users.

Windows 10 (build 10240) seems like a pretty good compromise so far. There's still plenty I don't like, but I think its a genuine step forward from 7 rather than a step sideways.

HLS already dominates by streamed hours of content, is implemented in every connected device stack, is patent free due t using MPEG Transport Streams and M3U8 playlists, and is much simpler to implement than DASH. If the MPEG-LA and the DASH-IF wants DASH to fail, they should take a good look at why they're trying to grab for more money.

I thought this would be a bad idea from the first time I heard about it, just like all the other "smart" guns. Makes it entirely too easy for NSA types to remotely disable weapons, and they have access to a lot better equipment than Sandvik & Auger do.

it means they introduce programming to younger kids. you imagine kids chained in a classroom with their eyes propped open forced to watch bubble sort algorithms?

is learning music "forcing culturally objectionable content on our children"?

is learning math "forced march into the voodoo underlying antireligious science and anti free market economics?"

so i repeat: where the fuck do you low iq conspiracy theory morons come from?

it's actually a serious question. i have a serious difficulty understanding how a functioning human being can arrive at the deranged socially retarded concept you put forth in your comment. i'm 100% serious

We had a preview version here at work, and it froze up while I was trying to change the wallpaper. Admittedly, this was several months ago, and I expect that those kinds of issues have been fixed, but I'll stick with Win 7 as it still works fine.

"you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink (want a bet?)"

Short of violence and/or other behavior that most would consider animal abuse? Go figure that normal people exclude that as a valid solution to the 'problem'.

"doesn't have the horse sense to stay out of the rain"
(clearly never owned horses, they will seek shelter from rain -[...]"

"Horse sense" is a synonym for "good sense" or "sound judgment". The implication is that horses WILL stay out of the rain, and otherwise exhibit good sense. You mis-understood the proverb completely; and it means the opposite of what you think.

"you'll catch more flies with honey than with vinegar" (try that with a fly trap).

Fine you win one, sort of... if you get to pick the species of fly in question. Yes certain species of fruit flies are attracted to the scent of vinegar. Other species not so much.

I certainly don't mean to denigrate any of them. They all were very brave, and yup, MLK was assassinated but that's kind of my point... he was at risk but only at risk to outright illegal activities. They had to resort to assassination to kill him because they couldn't really act openly against him, they had no legal grounds to simply throw him into isolation and toss the keys forever.

With Snowden, they don't need to resort to a secret conspiracy against him, they can act in the open, with the full force of the law. It's a completely different threat level.

MLK could go on "Sunday talk shows" to paraphrase someone up in the thread. (Hell, that's one of the safest places he could be.) But Snowden would be a fool to try that; they'd pick him up immediately, and he'd never set a free foot down again.

What everybody is unhappy about is that the government wants to force people who DON'T want to try programming to do it.

what the fuck are you talking about? where do you morons come from?

can we stop with this nonsense please? it is similar to idiots who oppose teaching all kids programming

restricting access to developing a skillset which just builds on abstract reasoning is a joke, nothing more. it's as if lots of people making lots of programs somehow hurts good programs and good programmers. how? can someone define me how that works? there has to be a formal logical fallacy for what this low iq idea suggests. it's like saying gays getting married somehow hurts heterosexual marriage. and we see how well that mental diarrhea has persuaded

lots of people trying programming only hurts mediocre programmers. the only kind of people who take this nonissue seriously. it's popularity on slashdot therefore does not bode very well for the readership of this website

meanwhile, i welcome anyone who wants to try programming and i wish them well. it can be fun, it can be infuriating. and if in your quest you wind up being more skilled and hired to replaced than the kind of weak mouth breather who wants to somehow magically limit the pursuit of programming to some of kind of bullshit guild, this a surefire win

Whatever the sum...if you can start a rumor that Bennett Haselton is a viable competing bidder for the site you'll hit the needed Kickstarter goal in no time.

I don't think you grasp just how different Snowden is from Parks.

What, pray tell was the maximum penalty Rosa Parks faced for failing to comply with a Montgomery city ordinance? Legally? She wasn't in any real danger. A modest fine, or a couple nights in jail.

Her only real risk was that she could have been beaten (illegally) by police in an era and region where the people beating her would have gotten away with it.

King Jr? Arrested several times. No serious charges, and no serious penalties. Like Parks his greatest risk was illegal beatings and vigilantism. There's certainly no question what he did took courage. But the authority of the government itself wasn't really a threat to him. And the government wasn't going to threaten to shoot down a passenger plane he was on just to get their hands on him.

How about Susan B Anthony? She was arrested, and fined $100. (A lot more then than now, but still... small potatoes.)

You are right, Parks, Anthony and King Jr aren't on the same level as Snowden. He's in a level of trouble so much greater; those others never even scratched the surface.

No, Snowden is up there with Ben Franklin and the like. People who resisted their government at the very highest levels, people who would have hanged for their activities if they'd allowed themselves to get caught.

Nobody of any authority has even mentioned the death penalty. The US government hasn't executed anyone for crimes other than murder in 50 years.

I hope CmdrTaco buys it back for $250. God damn would that be funny.