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Comment Re:not the point (Score 1) 375

Those bluetooth locker programs are handy for this, once your phone / headset / whatever is out of range of your computer the lock screen automatically comes on. Some can also be configured for unlock (though that seems like it would add another possible attack surface).

I feel like there would be a market for small bt keychain dongles for this exact purpose.

Comment Re:Worthless (Score 1) 248

The skylobby design works well enough - to get from the ground to any floor requires a maximum of one transfer, and elevator shafts can be stacked. The (original) NYC WTC towers for example had an elevator pattern which was:
Express elevators to floor 44.
Express elevators to floor 76.
Shuttle express elevator between 44 and 76 that didn't go to the ground level.
Local elevator banks served groups of 7-8 floors and would only take people to the nearest skylobby (or the ground for the lower third of the building).
Tourist / freight elevators which could stop at 2, 44, 76, and 107 (possibly also 106, I forgot).

The only drawback of this design was, if you wanted to go from, say, floor 77 to floor 73, you would have to take 3 elevators (with transfers on 76 and 44). But the overwhelming number of elevator trips in any building involve the ground floor anyway, so this isn't really a big deal.

Comment Re:Screenshots (Score 1) 378

That's what the quick launch bars are/were for, if you make it small enough it's just another menu. I dunno if it's in Windows 8 because I got so frustrated with the start screen's jarring appearance that I just put shortcuts to everything I run on the desktop, removed the start button and trained myself to never hit the windows key unless I'm using it in a key combination. Even though I eventually installed classic shell, my workflow had been destroyed enough by that nonsense that I haven't bothered to set the rest of that up yet. Thanks Microsoft for sending me almost all the way back to windows 3.1, at least Windows+D is a bit easier than alt+tabbing to program manager...

Comment Re:Oh no... (Score 1) 148

Windows 8 would have been the year of Linux on the desktop, if the Gnome project hadn't decided to radically change their UI at the same time. It would have been easy to get people to switch to Gnome 2. But by inspiring every distro to jump ship for something else, at the crucial time when we really could have convinced people to switch, there was nothing fitting the (worthwhile+easy to use) categories to recommend.

We really were that close. I don't see us ever getting back to that, at this point. At least, I see Microsoft getting their act together again long before.

Comment Re:Size (Score 1) 324

Agreed, however people generally don't go around doing that even in the absence of such a law / enforcement. Having a simple law against unprovoked attacks would work fine, and allow juries to determine what constitutes a provocation in the event it goes that far. I mentioned the whole "ask people to stop first" as well. The solution to assholes has been around since the dawn of man, if Ugg keeps putting out the fire when everyone else is cold, Ugg will get clubbed over the head and left outside.

Comment Re:But Java... (Score 1) 79

in fact Linux typically requires all software to be installed as root no matter what

Technically yes, running "make install", using a package manager or installing an rpm/deb almost certainly requires root/sudo. However, there is nothing stopping you from keeping it all within your home directory (provided the /home filesystem has space and isn't set to noexec), many cases only requiring a wrapper script to modify LD_LIBRARY_PATH. A good example of a complex program which works this way would be apache directory studio, you just untar and launch the executable.

Comment Re:Size (Score 1) 324

It's a whole lot simpler when you can simply punch out an asshole for being an asshole, and the 'criteria' is that the popular opinion of those observing the situation is that the punch was justified. Simple social ettiquete, if someone has an issue with your use of glass you can put it away or explain calmly, and if they have that much of a problem with it concede for the purpose of keeping the peace. I encounter this a lot with just a camera since I like taking pictures of not-people (buildings, infrastructure, indoor spaces). But of course, our society is now "wah wah I was being an asshole and can you believe he PUNCHED me and now I have a new house and car and he lives in a box!" and since the simple approach is illegal, we pile on asshole laws.

Comment Re:BASIC because the B stands for... (Score 2) 648

Actually no, excellent advice but for too old a user. At age 10 I started hacking away on a hand me down commodore vic 20 while everyone else was enjoying Windows. The stuff I discovered with a few reference manuals, sample programs on tapes, and the goal of building programs with menu driven interfaces...

Comment Re:fittingly ignorant (Score 1) 894

The problem is, when you trigger a strong emotional reaction, laws don't matter. If you piss someone off enough, they just want to hurt you and aren't thinking of the consequences. Or worse, if it is premeditated (like this obviously was) the thoughts on consequences become "no matter what happens to me, you'll still be dead". So unless you're prepared to deal with a worst case reaction, it's better to avoid conflict. Common sense with anything really, just because you're in the right doesn't mean you'll come out the victor.

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