By that logic, jail terms should be calculated based on the convict's life expectancy. I think there's something fundamentally wrong with that outcome.

I don't know about that. It might be true. The answer to "Will they..." will certainly be "No".

If you need to install third-party software to make the basic OS usable or presentable, then the OS makers have failed miserably.

You're preaching to the choir. Users have been screaming this since the earliest test releases of Windows 8.

Windows 8 was all about servicing Microsoft by trying to funnel all of the users into their app store ecology. That was the sole purpose of every change to the UI and the existence of Metro on the desktop in the first place. It was never about anything else. The only reason that don't abandon it entirely is because that would require admitting that it was all a farce in the first place.

Yeah, I think the Windows 8 UI is a steaming pile of fail, but I never understood the hate the ribbon gets. Sure, it's different, and has its advantages and disadvantages, but I never had any issues with it. Of course, I avoid Office as much as possible, but I have no issues with the ribbon.

I agree with your comments until we get to Windows 8. I think Windows 8 is another step in uglification of Windows. No problem, I originally thought, because there's always classic mode. In my option, although the Windows 7 default UI was the least objectionable, I think every version of Windows since Windows 2000 has had an uglier default UI than Windows 2000. But it's no big deal when you can go back to the "classic" look.

But apparently Windows 8 is so advanced, so sophisticated, it can't do that, so I'm stuck with the hideous flatness (memories of Windows 2) where all the windows on the desktop look like a giant mess because there little or nothing to differentiate between them, and there's nothing I can do about it. Regardless of what you think of the "flat" look (and like I said, I hate it), there is absolutely no way it is an improvement from a functionality and UI point-of-view. Elements on the screen, and especially different windows simply run together in a mess of undifferentiated rectangles. The pajama boy hipsters have taken over the asylum and we all have to suffer from their ridiculous sense of taste.

I really wouldn't mind this nonsense if there were some way to just make it work like it used to. There is almost nothing in Windows 8 that I like over Windows 7*, and there wasn't much in Windows 7 I liked over XP.

*The only thing I can think of is the pauseable file copy dialogs (which Linux has had for at least a decade), but of course, they now have focus issues and I will often find myself dragging and dropping something multiple times because the file copy dialog is hidden underneath everything else, showing an error message that I never see until I alt-tab to it. Fortunately, robocopy is still a thing, because nothing beats it.

I noticed 90% of them are not in anyway helpful to the developers - statements like "It deosunt prnit" (with no further information as to what didn't print and on what hardware) or "why are you so dtoopid!" --- "useful information" to that effect.

Well, after Windows 8, it's just payback.

After all, this is the OS gave us:

"Its flat. Flat luks cool."
"Start Button iz lame. Start screen is mor usefl."
"Mrtro is the fut0rz. EVerything is fill screen!!1"

I felt the same way about "Raising Steam". It felt like a story outline with a bunch of filler. There was a little good humor, but a tiny, tiny percentage compared to any previous books. I finished it (as an audio book) out of a sense of duty, rather than because I enjoyed it, especially because I knew this had to be his last book. Unfortunately, I found most of it really boring.

I thought "Snuff" was fine, just different, although I didn't care for the goblins. They were just too one-dimensional, unlike every other race Terry Pratchett chose to flesh out in his remarkably detailed world.

Nevertheless, I will continue to read and re-read the Discworld books and his other books for the rest of my life. He's been my favorite author for many years.

Yeah, the real criticism of Zachary Quinto as Spock was that he killed so many other of the crew members and stole their powers. He was stone-cold evil.

That's one of the reasons why I love "Parks and Recreation". Yes, the characters have flaws, and there was conflict, although not a whole lot, but the show focused primarily on the good relationships among the characters. I think "Community" follows the same pattern. Both shows are the anti-"Seinfeld" where the most important aspects of the characters are their good traits, not their bad ones.

The characters in JJTrek, on the other hand, were pretty much cyphers, just stereotypes of the original characters, flat 2D versions. Some of the actors did a fine job with what they were given, especially Karl Urban, but none of the characters themselves were memorable, except in as much as they were pale echoes of the originals.

The Spock character was developed for literally decades, and in the movies he experienced his best and most interesting growth as a character, thanks in no small part to Nimoy's superb acting. This is a character we grew up with, but also a character who "grew up" himself, and so the legacy of the character, and the actor who brought him to life is immense. In contrast, the new movies are nothing but 90-minute segments of visual Ritalin, incoherent and completely forgettable. I'll take the worst Star Trek episodes (and there were some real stinkers, I cannot overstate this) over this shiny blue mess any day, because as bad as those episodes were, at least they were trying to do something other than be flickering lights and noise and demos for the latest CGI software.

I would believe that prediction even if I weren't a Christian.

You can actually do the same thing in Python.

I'd pay to see those stretch goats.

"Voyager" would have worked if the writers would have cut back severely on the booze. Kate Mulgrew is a fine actress, but the writing for her character was wildly inconsistent and the writing for the show varied between "going through the motions" and "people actually got paid for this crap?". If there was ever a by-the-numbers, we-can't-upset-the-status-quo-one-iota television show, it was "Voyager". You can go back and watch "Gilligan's Island" reruns and there is a more realistic chance that the castaways will get rescued in every single episode than there will be in the Voyager crew making any meaningful progress in getting back to Earth, until the finale-decreed deus ex machina.

If your brain did work, you'd likely have better appreciation for classic cinema, and if you still didn't like it, your criticisms would be more meaningful than "they are so terrible", therefore I conclude there is no evidence to back up your assertion.

I thought you were being sarcastic to make a point in the first paragraph.

In the second, I realized that maybe you weren't and I feel very sad for you. What do you like? Michael Bay movies?