IMO, look and feel is hardly the biggest failing of the GNOME system. There are more fundamental problems with their user philosophy. Years ago when a new set of workstations were deployed where I work everyone had the option of running either GNOME 2 or KDE 3. Officially the admins only wanted to support GNOME, but within a short time everyone in our location was on KDE 3.

Why? Well it turns out the admins never really did a thorough test of our tool flow on GNOME. We use a lot of expensive tools that come from legacy Unix backgrounds (they aren't recent GTK devel), so it turns out we had major problems with things like focus stealing. This would be where the app would pop up a messagebox and GNOME would happily yank you from whatever desktop you were working on to wherever the messagebox was. At the time there were no options in GNOME to handle this kind of thing, whereas KDE had a number of focus stealing controls.

Then there was the issue of resizing windows. At the time GNOME had one method of resizing windows, and that was to continually redraw the content in it - no wireframe or outline methods, only continuous redraw. That's great and all if your most complex app is a web browser, but when you got an app showing a couple gigs of visual data and every window resize event triggers a redraw, it quickly locks up the machine.

And then there was the question of the right-click menu. WTF was with this menu. It was loaded with a bunch of useless options for creating folders and crap. It was like someone who had never used a Unix machine before just decided to shoehorn in some crap there so the menu did something. KDE at least allowed the menu to be customized into something useful.

This is all regarding GNOME 2 at the time, but it gets to the core of what I perceive as GNOMEs problem - and as I understand it, this is both widely understood, and truly a development target of GNOME (and I fully expect GNOME 3 to be no different) - and that is that the GUI is not designed to be flexible or changeable, it is designed to be rigid and idiotproof. They are providing a fixed GUI interface for the lowest common denominator of user, and anyone who wants something different can STFU.

This is of course further compounded by their method of burying the GUI settings in a hundred different files across a dozen hidden directories, perhaps wrapping it in some obscure XML pseudo-code, so nobody can figure out WTF the options really are or what they do (perhaps it's some kind of subtle method of eliminating those annoying hacker types who might undo their GUI "vision"). KDE is no better in this regard. I remember when at least one GUI I used to use kept its menus in plain text format that was easily understood and modifiable, what the heck ever happened to that concept?

I'm sure if I were to relate to a GNOME dev the problems I had with focus stealing, he would turn around and tell me the problem was with my app, not the GUI. And if I were to relate how I like to launch programs from the right-click menu I would be told I'm doing it wrong and I should learn how to do it the "right" or "better" way. And thus I become yet another alienated user who has moved on to something else. Radically changing an interface and then pushing it as a rigid right-and-only way is going to piss off a lot of people. Lots of people left KDE when they did it, and the same will happen to GNOME.

Overall terrible news IMO. I wish they wouldn't have focused on the electric aspect so much. Same body design, but with a normal internal combustion engine and a decent price, and I probably would have gotten one as a commuter vehicle (very similar concept to say a T-rex motorcycle, but without the high price). I think there is definitely a market for vehicles like this, lightweight like motorcycles, but enclosed (not always exposed to the environment like on a bike).

I can't believe no one has suggested one of the many MAME interface boards. Arcade enthusiasts have a myriad of inexpensive interfaces for connecting custom controls to a computer. They are cheap and easy to use:
http://www.ultimarc.com/ (follow U-HID links, or the I-PAC, Opti-PAC, etc links)
http://groovygamegear.com/ (follow the controls interfaces link)

Buttons, spinners, joysticks (optical, microswitch, etc), and analog controls - there is almost certainly an off the shelf interface for any kind of basic control like that. Beyond that a microcontroller kit (arduino or other) could fill in anything more exotic. I'm going a similar route to this for a custom CNC control panel I'm building, fun stuff.

Most importantly, non-paying customers only get red shirts and generic names. They also have to be one of the first people to beam down to the planet, and the only sound they can make is the Wilhelm scream.

Indeed. I heard an interesting argument a week or so ago, where one businessman said that one of the problems with banks in the US is that the government insures all deposits (up to a limit). On it's face it sounded possibly terrifying, can you imagine giving your cash to a banker with no gov't insurance. However since the gov't backs the holdings the banks do not need to operate in a low risk manner with that money, since they know regardless they will get bailed out. It made for an interesting thought, in that if the gov't did not insure any of the holdings you can be sure people would only put their money in a bank with an absolutely solid reputation and no tolerance for risk.

There was a similar argument I heard a few years ago regarding insurance companies, in that they also have large holdings which they were investing in ever more risky ventures. The fact that the gov't backs up all deposits implicitly indicates their distrust in the banking system (after all, if it were trustworthy, why would it need backing), but yet they do things like repeal Glass–Steagall which encourages ever more risky behavior. There is a lot the gov't could do to rein in bad bank and investment behaviors. After all if things like derivatives are indeed equivalent to financial mass destruction tools, why not ban them outright. Just because things can be done, doesn't mean they should be allowed.

I saw that in one of their videos and couldn't figure out if the wall of unconnected bricks was just storage for them to be used properly later on, or if they were really intending that to be a structural wall. It was so wrong on so many levels. It was unreinforced, it had no running bond or tie pattern in it, there was little to no "mortar" between the bricks, it didn't even look like they had been dried properly. Even with a proper tie pattern and bricks, from what I've read unreinforced masonry is a lousy construction method anywhere that might have an earthquake risk.

If only Netcraft had confirmed it instead...

Well at least we can all agree BSD is dead.

Seriously, this is another example of GUI design based on the average idiot user. Misguided and idiotic GUI redesigns serve no purpose but to annoy the userbase (ex. KDE4 and GNOME3). I find that I use the Start menu far less often because I've moved the apps I use to the PA menu. It's my way of doing what MS should have done a long time ago - separation and modularization of the apps from the OS (no install, no registry crap, etc). Seriously all this GUI rework and MS has yet to implement truly useful and fundamental changes to the OS. They still by default cram all the OS, apps, and data into a single place on a single drive (seriously 'My Documents', 'My Music', etc.. argh, does anyone actually use this idiotic and stupidly placed directory structure for managing their data?) Tying all that together insures when an OS gets corrupted/infected/whatever a reinstall will become a painful and long process.

But no, instead of something useful like eliminating the registry, they spend their time unnecessarily reinventing the GUI. Perhaps at least they will finally discover multiple desktops. Of course just looking at the tile-based monstrosity I can just imagine how they will play the hide-the-system-settings game. Instead of something useful I'm guessing they will play the usual game of shuffling the settings and burying them several layers deep (you know as far as possible from the user).

Then the robot lawyers will move in and enact laws to protect the robot jobs. And just wait until the robot unions get involved, those parasites - but of course where there are unions, soon there is the mafia - thats right, the robot mafia. Where does it all end - let me tell you, it's not pretty. Soon we will be paying our tax dollars to support the robot welfare state, while those deadbeats leech off government at our expense. The epi-center of this disastrous robot future world - Detroit naturally. But there is hope, a man who can save us from the robot tyranny, I think his name is Neo...

I heard a phrase a long time ago along these lines - If you are working 80hr/wk for a certain wage, it is the same as working two 40hr/wk jobs for half as much each. How many people would trade their 80hr/wk job for two 40hr/wk jobs at half pay? Perhaps some, who are highly motivated by the money or who really like their job, but for many when it is put in that context the drudgery of two jobs versus one becomes more apparent, and they would not make such a trade (of course, not all people have the flexibility for that in these times though, it could be 80hr/wk versus 0hr/wk).

It's not just pure drudgery of work though - people should not be motivated to do such levels of work unless reward is clearly tied to, and scales with, effort. I could relate many stories of management flushing everyone's hard work down the tubes by canceling projects on the verge of production, but perhaps one has to live it to believe it, so I'll refrain. On the flip side I have been in situations where such work has paid off and quite well. Overall though if there is no clear connection between extra work and extra reward then there is no such connection, and people are just burning their life away for a corporation which will never recognize or acknowledge their effort.

For basic content viewing, and simple web browsing small touchscreens work ok. However for anything requiring more precision than the finger sized blob a touchscreen sees, they absolutely blow. I can barely stand editing a couple sentences on a smartphone, and I can't imagine using it to do the things you would do on a regular computer. Try writing a thesis on a smartphone, or here's one - does anyone code android apps using only an android touchscreen device? That would be agony. At minimum I think one would want some kind of dock with an actual keyboard/mouse to do any kind of real work on such a device. Even then you would also want to plug into additional storage. Perhaps someone will make a killing with a low cost docking station.

I was hoping someone would expand on this. When the second game came out with "universal ammo", crap level design, and overall short game length, they managed to kill many of the things that made the PC original great. All done presumably to make it more accessible on consoles. My main concern on this one is what kind of tradeoffs, if any, were made in that context.

Well, I've been using Unix-like OSs since the late 80's, including Solaris, HPUX, and even Linux when it first entered the scene, so apparently I was right after all. Your "experience" doesn't count for shit apparently, obvious by the immensely stupid comments that keep coming out your mouth. Despite your assertions otherwise you don't have "extensive" knowledge about anything discussed in this thread, although the fact that you haven't used any of this "once over the last 20 years" is probably true, since you know nothing about it.

And yet you have accomplished none of this, the virtualization works fine, it's efficiency is higher, and it works quite well. Everything I've said is based on actual tried and tested setups. Your assertions are based on nothing but your raging stupidity and have no basis in fact. Why the rage, who knows, perhaps Microsoft backed the car over your cat, I don't care or give a shit. All you have accomplished in this thread is to demonstrate your complete ignorance on the subject, you've discredited yourself, you made yourself look like a complete raving fool, you imagined a bunch of bullshit regarding an imaginary XP install, you've established how biased and worthless your comments are, and you've proven that over 20 years you learned absolutely nothing. Congratulations, you are truly an idiot.

However there is a solution for this for me. I can mark you a foe, and all your utterly worthless comments will be modded to -5, an appropriate level for the inane comments you spew out, and I won't have to be bothered reading your vile worthless vitriol ever again.

Yes, and it works quite well. And if you think that's amazing you'll be quite shocked when you find out how a great many websites work - here's a hint: they aren't all running individually on their own separate machines. I'm guessing if you ever find out how cloud computing works your head would explode.

I said no such thing, all my virtual guests are running Linux. I don't run XP at all. This is just more imaginary crap made up in your tiny idiot mind.

I can assure you, I have.

Right from the mind of a 4yr old. Don't worry, you've fully demonstrated your complete ignorance of both virtualization as it's used all around these days and the specific Virtualbox software described in the thread. Go back to your anti-Microsoft raging bullshit, I'm done arguing with your idiocy.

Exactly. Hide the status bar, hide the full URL, hide the version number. Obscuring things is apparently their new development model.