I know it can be turned on/off in code already, because application can choose to ignore system defaults and use or not use ClearType on their own already.

So I generated this B&W example of what this issue does to the fonts, when you take into account RGB sub-pixels: http://ark42.com/win8.1/192dpi...
It's really quite terrible.

Yeah, I can't think of any reason they should have kept ClearType on behind the scenes when scaling is done like that. It's just plain stupid.

I think it was back when XP came out that Microsoft started recommending all apps include a 256x256 alpha-channel icon instead of just 16x16 and 32x32 and 16/256 color with palette transparency. Any app that actually follows those specs will scale down the icon to the 64x64 needed in that screenshot. The stupid thing is it's all MS apps that don't follow the guidelines and look terrible with fonts or icons: VS2003, MMC.EXE (which runs Device Manager, etc)

I guess, except the Desktop always gets cluttered with files... and you can't make icons 4 difference sizes at once depending on how important the icon is on the desktop, and you can't really group or label icons like the start screen does, unless maybe you fix it into your wallpaper or use folders, which seems silly.

I don't buy discs, I don't even have a disc reader on the laptop, so what's the point?

Apps have to opt-in to being able to support that via a new manifest setting. Older apps, even ones that declare them selves DPI-aware, will just get the setting of the monitor that they open up on, then scale pixels if you drag the window to a different screen. Newer apps can now add a new per-screen-DPI-aware manifest setting, and then listen to some API calls to rescale themselves when needed I guess. Seems like a lot of work for corner cases for most people really, compared to, you know, having one programmer at Microsoft make mmc.exe at least regular DPI-aware?

Well you can always turn on the option to show your same desktop wallpaper behind the start screen. Might help some. I for one LOVE the fact that I don't have to manually delete all the crap extra icons programs install on the start menu like I used to on Win 7 and below. I can just leave all the garbage in the down-arrow screen and type-to-search the few things I want, and pin just those to the main screen. Once you remove all the junk on the start screen that came there by default, you can easily get a screen that doesn't even need to scroll sideways and fit all the commonly used icons there, neatly organized.

There does not appear to be any filtering at all, at least not at 200% where it can just double up the pixels with ease. It might filter at 125% or 150%, I don't know. Here is a screenshot where I put arrows pointing at good and bad font rendering on a few screens of common OS things: http://ark42.com/win8.1/192dpi...

Nope. I have USB 3.0 ports and an SD card slot. I did install MPC-HC and watch plenty of 1080p content on that just fine. What's the issue you're getting at?

It probably tells you about Win+X and all the other keyboard shortcuts in one of the tutorials or other junk at first boot that I didn't watch. I also know on the start screen you can click your login name and get a menu with shutdown/restart/etc. In control panel somewhere you can also toggle additional options on/off for that menu like hibernate.

I don't really see what the big deal is. I just got a new laptop with Windows 8.1 on it. First time ever actually using Windows 8, and at first, I was disgusted by the start 'screen'... but after a VERY short while, I realized that it was basically just a full-screen start menu that let you organize things by importance (how big the tile is) and also lets you see everything at once, vs the old way of having to carefully navigate up and right and into the menu hierarchy. Do I really need to see my open windows and part of my desktop behind the start menu when I'm just clicking to start a program? Not really.

What I really STILL hate after a few days of using this laptop is how HORRIBLE the support for high-DPI screens is. This laptop is 15" with 2880x1620 pixels, and is set to 200% scaling/192 dpi. Windows OS components like mmc.exe are labeled as NOT dpi-aware in their manifest files, so you get this really stupid looking font scaling on half of the dialogs from Windows itself. Windows renders everything to an off-screen 96dpi buffer, then just scales that up 200%. The whole ClearType sub-pixel rendering is completely useless when you double all the red and blue pixel edges around fonts! Half of the programs I have installed look like complete garbage because they just don't care about supporting anything but 96dpi. Even Google Chrome suffers this horrible font issue, but luckily I prefer Firefox anyway, which is DPI-aware and renders fonts beatifically.

Because Win+X is to hard to press?

The ones I typically get are from my gas or electric company, and for service plans involving washer/dryer/furnace/etc. I'm pretty sure my tiny local bank with only a handful of branches is not the one sending the "checks".
I really don't see how it could be legal to sign up or agree to anything, especially if you cross it out and/or write explicitly "I do not agree". Then, the worst that I think could happen is the check bounces I would hope.

I gotta wonder how this applies to unsolicited "checks" sent in the mail. You know, the ones that claim you agree to sign up for some useless monthly service plan if you cash it.
Can that really be legally binding? What if you cross off any words on the check itself that indicate your agreement, write "I do not agree" and then endorse the check, and your bank cashes it. Can your local utility really sign you up for a useless service plan and legally make you pay for it at that point?

And yet Chrome still can't do CSS3 gradients right..... http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=41756#c71

Chrome's Javascript is terrible in my experience. Every time I write something that needs speed, both Firefox and IE are way better. The last example was a page that did nothing more than scroll and resize images across a page, so they were bigger when in the middle of the page, and smaller by the edges. The page just runs the images in an infinite loop, and the images are only about 600 pixels big, and there are only 70-80 of them. For maximum smoothness, I ran setInterval at 4ms for 250fps, and easily obtained 250fps on both Firefox and IE. Chrome and Opera, however, could barely manage 40fps on the same machine! On slower computers, it got worse too, with Chrome falling to 22 fps while Firefox still managed 250. The javascript is so basic and simply I could probably paste it in a comment right here.