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Comment I blame Al Roker (Score 1) 397

Somebody bury him in the the closest snow bank please wherever he is. TWC is no longer a source of information for me about the weather after this event. Too much sensationalism interspersed with some actual reporting. I watched this morning and they had a chalkboard up with a formula for calculating population density; all in multiple colors of chalk.

Comment Re:Actual Conspiracy (Score 1) 95

Well the CFAA gets used and abused quite a bit. I'm sure it's applicable here. The problem is proving who the perps are who wrote the stuff and catching them. Since you're implying the US government or some of its allies then let's suppose that you could provide evidence at trial that they actually wrote it and used it to hack your system. The simple response by government lawyers would be "national security" in which case they have a better than 90% chance of getting the judge to agree and your evidence is excluded and sealed. On top of that you'd have a gag order put in place that if you ever did disclose the information you found you'd wind up with a long vacation at club Fed.

Comment Re:Scaled Composites renamed (Score 4, Informative) 38

Actually since 2007 They're a division of Northrop Grumman and responsible for the X47B. They have a free creative hand but let's say instead of advances in aviation of a civilian nature they're now in the military business. They still have contracts with Virgin Galactic so don't expect them to be completely out of the picture. Burt retired in 2011 so he's no longer involved with any of it.

Comment Re:Terrible names (Score 1) 378

In other words, you can know that the function to perform some task exists*, or you can know where to find the control that should make it work** -- but knowing either one will cause the other to fail.

Really, Quantum is the reason I hate "modern" UI -- the spatial UI makes sense with human psychology; this contextual stuff means that we change the function of the software just by observing it, and that means we can never memorize it all and just move on.

Which is why the UI design should be more straightforward. Contextual order in UI is more troublesome and more difficult to learn, hence trying to avoid nesting menus beyond two layers. In the literal sense there's nothing quantum in a UI and when we're talking Windows, nothing transforming to come close to it. I can only hope that the folks who have brought Start Menu sanity to 8/8.1 produce something that we're used to at least however I could also assume that MSFT has gone out of their way to prevent it. So either I'll have a reasonable Start Menu or I won't but just starting at the screen figuring out where/what to click seems inevitable.

Comment Re:Terrible names (Score 1) 378

Charms bar? Continuum?

It's the new "Dude, Where's My Car?" Operating system design methodology. You'll have to guys pop up in leather jumpsuits asking if you have your Continuum Transfunctioner? They had thought about using "Chinese Food" as a menu but it would be nested too deeply with infinite "and then" sub-menus.

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