Morale: Better Beard:shaven

Day 7 of not being able to post on slashdot. Beard: shaven, morale: ok. Supposedly its from some abuser on my subnet.

www.geocities.com/James_Sager_PA

A recent comment of mine got modded down to -1, Flamebait, even though it was absolutely true. My comment was something along the lines of conductors in symphonies don't matter, than I got some stupid AC's replying to me who said that wasn't true. Then I got some people posting under their real /. accounts who have played in professional symphonies for decades who said that the conductor is just for rehearsal, and doesn't really affect the music during the performance. This backed up what I was originally saying against the AC's ... but it was already too late. My comment had already been modded down to -1, and once a comment reaches that threshold of oblivion, it seems very unlikely for it to ever be modded back up.

I've recently gotten into a nasty fight with some AC's. It started with a (lame) joke I posted to a thread, then an AC responded that it was old and rehashed, then I said he should have the balls to post under his own username, and then more ACs attacked me for my posting history and journal entries. It's not worth picking a fight with an AC - they have nothing to lose, but if you don't post anonymously you do have a lot to lose, like getting lots of people on your Freaks list.

I'm in college now. Full scholarship to University of Maryland College Park, computer science major, got straight A's my first semester, just in case you were wondering. Winter Break is dragging on ... and on ... and on. I just want to go back to school now and be with my friends.

I've been tyring to find a program with which to manage how much money we have left on grants at work. So, I've tried a couple of demos. What the fuck is up with this crap? When moving money from one account to another, it will say "deposit" in both accounts, despite the fact that money was withdrawn from one account and deposited into another. I'm no fucking accountant, but I know that that's fucking bullshit. On top of that, the programs completely bork things up when you download the qif files for different accounts if money moves from one account to another. Furthermore, it's filled with fucking ads. Earth to intuit: people are paying for the product, not fucking ads and annoying pop-up reminders.
So, I looked on Amazon.com to get some reviews for Quicken and MS Money. Wow, what complete crap. In each case, the more recent the version, the crappier the product. Some people have even said that they've gone back to 1994 versions of Quicken, because it's gotten so crappy. Meanwhile, MS Money displays its own array of inexcuseable bugs.

Unfortunately, it's difficult to come by versions of Quicken 2000 or earlier. It's too bad that GNUcash isn't available for Windows. It's been very good to me for my personal finances. Guess increasingly crappy products are the kinds of problems you run into when you create an artificial scarcity of goods.

I mean, these programs are so fucking bad I deleted free iso's I downloaded from Kazaa. The latest is definately not the greatest. If anyone knows of any alternatives, or good versions, please do tell.

O'Reilly's Insulting Opinions on Personal Behavior

One of O'Reilly's latest talking-points memosdiscussed how the health-situation of the Pope and the disorganization of the Catholic Church is allowing the Secularist Movement to progress, unchecked. It is quite clear that O'Reilly does not agree with the Secularist movement at all, though he does not necessarily think that all of the things they advocate should be illegal. The Catholic Church, however, has a long list of things which it thinks should be illegal, and has proven to be incapable of distinguishing between what should be illegal and what it [The Church] thinks is immoral.

I. The Catholic Churh should deal with its own immoral behaviour before criticizing that of others

However, he has not been idolizing the Catholic Church, either. According to the the online transcript, O'Reilly had spent three days trying to find out why the Pope (and thus, the Catholic Church) has not acted more aggressively in combating sexual abuse by priests within the Church. The Catholic Church makes official declarations every day about how what everyone else is doing is immoral: Abortion, pre-marital sex, and contraceptives are immoral; abortion, the after-pill, and Planned Parenthood are immoral; prostitution, homosexuality, and incest are immoral; drugs, euthanasia, and smoking and drinking is immoral.

Yet, somewhere in The Bible, it said something about tending to the log in your own eye before the speck in another's. So, I suggest that, before the Catholic Church continues its war on the privacy rights of consenting adults, they clean up their own act. In that regards, what I ask is simple: that they get their priests to keep their fucking hands off of our kids. Priests, being in a position of implicitly understood trusts, have all the more violated their duties and the law when the rape little children. Thus, I suggest that the Church at least test individuals who are candidates for priest-hood for their likelihood to be pedophiles. I furthermore suggest that they institute a zero-tolerance policy towards Priests who rape children. If charges of child-molestation are brought before a Priest, the Church should suspend them from their duties and banish them from Church grounds, while the matter is ongoing. They could get paid for their suspension the same as normal salary, and be reinstituted into their position, if the charges are dropped or the priests are found not guilty. Obviously, the Church should decide if the charges had merit anyways, and if they were only dropped because of technicalities, should disenfranchise the priest. I suggest that they take a similar course of action for other crimes Priests may be accused of, such as sexual harassment, sexual assault, rape, theft, and murder.

Furthermore, I suggest that the Church stop protecting criminals. If someone confesses something that is immoral, fine. The Church should keep tthat person's confidence. But if they confess something that is of a serious criminal nature (e.g., a felony), then the Church should report it. Being a Catholic should not allow you to get away with crimes. It is absurd to elevate religion so high that it is above the law, which is what it essentially is when individual's can confess to crimes like rape, murder, child-rape, sexual harassment, sexual assault, and expect confidence.

Now, you may say that the Church itself is not responsble for the actions of its members, nor of its followers. True. However, it is responsible for what it does once it finds out. The refusal of the Church to turn in admitted criminals is really just a move to gain more political power. Think about it. From a power-perspective, why would the Church turn in its own followers? That's no way to gain power. By offering amnesty to all criminals, the Catholic Church creates for itself a large following. The refusal of the Church to take serious and swift action to eliminate the pedophilia within its organization is, in fact, a mass cover-up action. Again, from a perspective of power, why would they add fuel to the flames? Their position has simply been to remain as low profile as possible, just ignore it as much as possible, and let it blow over.

II. What is disgusting may differ from what is immoral, which may differ from what is and should be illegal
*note: discussion of what is illegal is from a US-perspective

Now, on to the issues in question. O'Reilly states that [the secularist movement] aims to legalize "partial birth abortion, hard drugs, prostitution, and gay marriage". This is most certainly true, though other movements not under the ideal of secularism -- such as Libertarianism, a movement for people's rights -- also support these aims.

Something that religious factions often completely ignore, is that legality does not necessarily have anything to do with morality. Things that are disgusting may differ from things that are immoral, which may differ from things that are and should be illegal.. Is it immoral to drive at 40mph in a 30mph zone? Is it immoral to place a fence around the perimeter of your yard with the bad side facing your neighbor? Is it immoral to J-walk? Immoral to drive while talking on a cell-phone? None of those things are immoral. Yet, all of them are illegal. Now, you may not agree that all those things should be illegal, but the odds are, there are some things which you think should be illegal, but which are not immoral. Nor could they reasonably be considered disgusting. The common reason for making things illegal which are not immoral is that, if many people do them, the outcome can be diastrous (if many people drive much faster than the speed-limit, it could have dire consequences).

Now, the counter-point. Is going to a strip-club and lying to your wife about it illegal? Is adultery illegal? (the answer is, in 26 states yes, the rest no, but even in those 26 states, the laws haven't been enforced since WWII) What about cheating on a committed partner you're not married to? Is cursing someone out illegal? None of those things are illegal (or are not effectively illegal, in the case of adultery). Yet, you could reasonably consider all of those things to be immoral, and perhaps disgusting. You may not consider all of those things immoral (I don't). However, odds are, there are some things which you think are immoral, but yet that should not be illegal and punishable with the force of law. The common reason why some things which are typically considered immoral may not be illegal is that: (a) Reasonable people can disagree on their immorality; (b) They are not worth bothering with the taxpayers money or time; (c) To effectively illegalize them would involve draconian violations of human rights.

Finally, there are some things which are disgusting, yet which are not and should not be illegal. Do you consider eating cottage cheese to be disgusting? What about broccoli? Or brussel-sprouts? Maybe sushi? Or fried buffalo-balls? Anchovies? Odds are, you think that eating at least one of those things would be disgusting. However, it is neither immoral, nor illegal, nor should it be illegal, to eat any of those foods. Even if you don't think that eating any of those foods is disgusting, there are most certainly other things which you find disgusting, but do not think are immoral, nor think should be illegal.

III. Partial birth abortion, hard drugs, prostitution, and gay marriage are not immoral, nor should they be illegal

Now, when you apply the chain of thought I just developed to the long list of things that the Catholic Church disapproves of -- which apparently doesn't include child-rape -- it becomes clear that, even if you think all of those things are immoral and disgusting, that does not necessarily mean that any of them should be illegal. Indeed, there are many good arguments to be made for why none of these things are not immoral or disgusting, and should not be illegal.

A. Partial birth abortion, though it may be disgusting, is not necessarily immoral, nor should it be illegal.

There is little denying that partial birth-abortion is disgusting. It is not a procedure you would want to watch being done while you eat. Never-the-less, neither are lipo-suction, root-canals, or rectal exams things that could qualify as television suitable for watching on a tender stomach. Certainly, none of them are immoral or illegal. So, the fundamentalist scare-tactic that tries to convince people that partial birth abortion should be illegal by showing disgusting pictures is fallicious. Many things -- regurgitation, for example -- are disgusting, but not immoral, nor should they be illegal.

Now that that argument has been dispatched, we can proceed to immorality. Surely, if you believe that the foetus is a person and that the right to life is of paramount importance, then, if you are consistent, you must believe that partial birth abortion is immoral, must you not? Not necessarily. What the hard-line antagonists of partial-birth abortion often neglect to mention is that the vast majority of partial birth abortions are not elective, but are done for medical reasons -- the safety of the mother. Think about it -- why would anyone in their right mind wait out the first 6 months of pregnancy -- while abortion is safer than birth -- only to elect to have an abortion during the last 3 months in the 3rd trimester? They wouldn't. Alternatively, even if the abortion is elective, there are other rights aside from the right to life -- such as the right to body, which is under the law in cases of extreme duress, just as important as the right to life. Homocide is justifiable to protect the right of another to his or her body from extreme violation, such as rape, torture, assault, or child-molestation -- even if the offender can't help his or her violation of the vicitm (e.g., if the offender is insane).

In any event, even if you believe that elective partial birth abortion is immoral, that doesn't necessarily mean that it should be illegal. For one thing, it is an issue that, as one man said, "informed and well-intentioned individuals can reasonably disagree on". In another regard, the illegalization of it would be undesireable for other reasons. It would require massive violations of privacy, and would encourage women to take matters into their own hands, rather than consulting a professional -- which would mean that the abortions would still be taking place, but women would be at significant risk. Furthermore, should every woman having a partial birth abortion need to provide proof that it was medically necessary or adviseable? Doctor-patient confidentiality goes out the window, because the Cathoilc Church has issues with abortion?

B. Hard drugs, though they may be disgusting, are not necessarily immoral, nor illegal

There is no denying that what hard drugs can do to an individual is disgusting. For a powerful real-life example of how drugs can destroy a person, watch the dramatized biography, Gia, with Angelina Jolie playing Gia. A fictional movie, A Reqium for a Dream also paints an effectively horrifying picture. However, many things that are legal can destroy a person's life, and we must remember that it is ultimately individual action which destroy's his or her life, not drugs. Alcohol can cause one to kill others while driving, lose one's job, and generally become a complete failure in life. Smoking can cause one to experience a painful and torturous death. Yet, neither of these things are -- nor should be -- illegal. It is arguable that the reason the mafia persisted strong until the 90s is because of the ill-advised prohibition on alcohol in the 30s. We are seeing the negative effects of the government's insane taxation on cigarattes here in the US -- people go to Indian Reservations and buy trunk-loads full of cigarattes. The prohibition on drugs is also what keeps black-market associated crime strong in the US. The reason drug-dealers and drug cartels prosper is because drugs are illegal -- thus overpriced -- in the US. The last people who want to see drugs legalized are those who rely on selling drugs for their income. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that drugs shouldn't be regulated -- as is alcohol. One cannot drive while drunk, due to the effects of alcohol. Likewise, it would be reasonable to say one can't be stoned while in public, due to the dangers of hallucinations to others.

C. Gay marriages, though some may consider them disgusting and immoral, should not be illegal

The role of the state in marriages is not to condone some marriages as religiously acceptable or not. As a legal matter, the sole purpose of marriage is to join assets, create certain tax advantages (along with some draw-backs), and create official recognition that two people are "together". It has nothing to do with the union of two soles before god. Now, you may consider gay marriage -- and the implied gay sex -- to be disgusting. However, you may also consider many kinds of sex that occur between heterosexual husbands and wives to be disgusting (e.g., fisting), but yet not immoral, and certainly shouldn't be illegal. You may even consider it to be immoral, but that does not necessarily mean it should be illegal. You may also consider certain kinds of sex occuring between man and wife (again, fisting, anal sex, bondage, etc) to be immoral; but that does not necessarily mean that they should be illegal. Illegalizing them would require severe violations of privacy.

But, I've drifted a bit. The issue here is about homosexual marriage, not sex. Again, as a matter of law, marriage has nothing to do with the union of souls, eternity together, or any of those other religious connotations. As a matter of law, when the law considers you married, all that means is that you are treated as a different entity in terms of taxes, debts, loans, property, and so-on and so-forth. In most cases -- provided competent legal management by the married couple -- that treatment is beneficial (e.g., larger tax exemptions). So, the issue here is that it is undeuly prejudicial for the law to only allow this advantage for those who happen to be heterosexual.

D. Prostitution, while you may consider it disgusting and immoral, should not be illegal

I have made a case for why prostitution is not disgusting or immoral, and should not be illegal, in another article. You can click on "dh003i's stories" and find it. I will only make a few points. The opinion that prostitution is disgusting is purely subjective, and insubstantiatable. Even if you view it as disgusting from a health-hazard point of view, health-hazards associated with it can be avoided by practicing safe-sex. Some may find it immoral, because, they say, it encourages infidelity. Well, that is hardly the fault of the prostitute, if a husband or wife strays; nor can they reasonably be asked to query all clients for that knowledge, because clients would lie if they thought prostitutes wouldn't sleep with them because of marriage (so it's pointless). Other's have argued that it's immoral because it devalues women and is degrading to them. Never-the-less, many individuals have found extreme power from prostitution and other sex work (see FeministStripper and Prostitute's Network). Other's have argued that it reflects badly on all women. Yet, this is fallicious reasoning -- since when do the actions of a few members of a group generalize to the entire group? Individual's are responsible for their own actions only, not those of any others. Finally, even if one views it as being immoral beyond repair, that does not necessarily mean it should be illegal. The effects of illegalizing prostitution have been so harmful as to justify its legalization to ameliorate them.

IV. Why I still respect O'Reilly

Everyone is entitled to their opinion as to what they think is immoral, disgusting, and should be illegal. Yet, I particularly respect a man or woman who can say that, though they think something may be disgusting or immoral, it should not be illegal -- for both practical and human-rights reasons. It is important that individual's understand that that which may disgust them may not necessarily be immoral; that that which they think is immoral should necessarily be illegal; and that, for many things, equally informed and intelligent well-meaning individuals can disagree on the morality of. O'Reilly, who said that -- though he disagrees with the "libertine" philosophy -- he agrees with the Supreme Court's decision that sodomy laws are unconstitutional due to privacy violations.

So, it's official, I've graduate high school! Yeeha! A lot awaits me in life, but I at least I am somewhat satisfied knowing I have accomplished something not everyone gets gets to. I also have a full scholarship at University of Maryland, College Park (which a lot fewer people get), but I'm not bragging, really, I'm not ...

Anyway, I like the newsgroup talk.origins. Join me as I fight off the hordes of creationist trolls. Or if you are a creationist troll yourself - please, I implore you, do not come! My newsgroup nick is "Cyde Weys". Look for it. I post a lot.

I'll be out this whole weekend at the MechWarrior CMG Nationals in Philly, PA. It's 3 days of non-stop MechWarrior fun. It's also a big gaming convention - lots of famous people are going to be there, such as Ray Park (Darth Maul), the guy who played Boba Fett, and the dwarf who played R2-D2. It should be interesting! Maybe I'll get some cool limited edition stuff and sell it on eBay. I'll try to ask Ray Park if he's seen the Star Wars Kid :-)

... and anyone who believed otherwise is a cunt.

Welp, the wicked witch is metaphorically "dead".

Of course, Krause is known for his unforgivable blunders. He took a 6-time championship team and destroyed it by pushing Phil Jackson, then necessarily Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen out the door. He alienated Jordan and other Bulls team-mates by saying that "players don't win championships, organizations win championships". He put together a squad of losers after the winners left, and the Bulls have endured 5 seasons of total and complete crap.
It's a real shame that the Bulls dynasty was broken up. If they'd stayed together, they would have still been sure-picks for NBA champions for another 2 or 3 years. The LA Lakers would never have amounted to anything. And we wouldn't have to hear this bullshit Kobe Bryant being the next Michael Jordan.

But, Krause was also responsible for assembling the Bulls 6-time championship team. He inherited MJ, but brought in the rest of the pieces -- most importantly, Jackson and Pippen and later Rodman -- that made the Bulls champions. He had an incredible eye for talent. But the success of any team under Krause was surely limited, because he was a bumbler. He wasn't a people-person. Period. He often mis-spoke and was mis-interpreted, because he just didn't know how to say things right.

When he said, "players don't win championships, organizations win championships" what he really meant to say was that it was the combined effort of everyone in the Chicago organization -- players, coaches, management, janitors, doctors, masseuses, and so-one and so-forth -- that resulted in championship victories. He did not mean to take away from what MJ and Pippen and Jackson had accomplished, nor that the Bulls could have won a championship without them. What he meant was that the hard work of everyone on the team was necessary to win. That's true.

But he just didn't say it right. It came off sounding like he was trying to grab all the credit for himself and marginalize the monumental play of Jordan and Pippen, and marginalize the exceptional coaching of Phil Jackson. This is basically how Jordan, Pippen, Jackson, and the rest of the world took Krause' comments -- as marginalizing their critical and enormous contributions. This incident and a slew of others like it lead to the ever-increasing alienation of MJ, Pippen, and Jackson from Krause, and it's what destroyed one of the best dynasties in NBA history.

All of this was because of Krause' inability to effectively communicate and socialize with others in the organization. As I said, he simply was not a people-person. He also certainly wasn't media-presentable. Here was a short, fat, stubby, and quite frankly ugly guy, who had a knack for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, when he really meant to say the right thing at the right time. Really, what Krause needed was a personal translator and media-ist. Someone to translate from Krause => English. From what Krause means to something that the rest of us could have understood properly.

This is not to excuse what the guy did to the Bulls. He was undoubtedly responsible for the destruction of a dynasty, and just because it all resulted from years of miscommunication on his part doesn't excuse him of responsibility. Maybe he wasn't the grinch, but because he was so rough around the edges and such a poor communicator, that's the way he came accross to the rest of us, and that's all that mattered. So the flaw of Krause which destroyed the Bulls was not recognizing his own limitations. He was by no means a competent communicator, so he should have just shut up and stayed focused on acquiring talented personel. Because Krause never seemed to recognize that he was a worse communicator than Al Gore, that he was less inspiring than a log, that he mis-spoke almost every time he opened his mouth, the dismantling of the Bulls was inevitable.

Check out my webpage if you DARE.

Fyre's Domain

According to this article, the chattel laws have been used to shut down freedom of speech. A court has ruled that it is ok for an individual to be sued for sending "unwanted" e-mail to corporation employees. It should be noted that this "unwanted" e-mail is not e-mail that the employees didn't want, but e-mail that the corporation didn't want the employees to see, because it criticized the corporation. Even more disturbing than this, chattel laws have been used to stop competitors from gathering information for comparative pricing from competitor's websites. These types of things threaten the very fibre of the internet, which fundamentally relies on free linking, not requiring a web-owner's permission to link to his site, or any sub-site within it. This is what makes the net efficient and useful to users.

I'm looking for a replacement for my current WindowManager in Debian GNU/Linux. Right now, I use PWM. Here's my criteria, with the most emphasis on those points regarding hide-away docks/etc, universal file menu, and tabbed windows, in that order.

1. Tabbed windows. Notice in the screenshot, how the instances of Netscape are "tabbed" together, as are those of Xterm. Tabbed windowing is a great way to save desk space and switch between windows -- it even reduces the need for a "task bar" or "dock," either of which often shows you what windows are available. All windows in almost every WM I can think of have "title bar". Often, this title bar extends the length of the screen -- which wastes screen real-estate. Those that don't, and haved "tabbed windows" like BeOS, often don't take advantage of it. One should be able to arrange tabbed windows in a maximized form, like a configuration box. This allows many windows to be maximized at once, but yet gives us (the users) a way to easily switch between them -- just like in a control panel. Ideally, when all windows are maximized, there should be tabs for the application along the top of the screen, and tabs for the specific instance of that application running along the right hand side of the screen. I.e., the top of a screen would look something like this going accross -- Galeon, Rxvt, GIMP, OpenOffice, Pine; the left side of a screen, assuming Galeon in focus, would look something like this going accross, and with the text at 90 degrees -- Slashdot, InfoAnarchy, FreeIPX, WSJ. Furthermore, when tabbed windows are not maximized, instances of the same program should automatically be grouped into a horizontal tabbing. There should also be dynamically customizable tabbing of windows -- i.e., the user should be able to manually group certain windows together into tabs.
2. Cascade retention. Part of the reason why things like minimization, tabbed windows, and docks were invented is because of crappy cascading. Cascading is great, until you decide to bring a window to focus at the middle of the cascade -- then the whole cascade is sent into anarchy. A cascade should be automatically retained, so that bringing one window in a cascade group to the front causes the others to be automatically rearranged to maintain the cascade, and not give you a sloppy mix-mosh. There are two ways in which the cascade can be rearranged (and retained) -- minimal rearrangement and order retention. Under minimial rearrangement, the only thing that changes is the window select -- it moves to the front and the right, while the others adjust to maintain the cascade: i.e., A, B, C, D, becomes A, B, D, C when window C is selected. Under order retention, the cascaded windows automatically retain their circular order when one is brought to the front: i.e., A, B, C, D becomes C, D, A, B when window C is selected.
3. Window Arrangement. The user should have flexible choice on how to arrange his windows -- not to mention the ability to create his own window arrangement schemes and rules. There should be more than cascade, tile vertically, tile horizontally, maximize all, tab. There should be options like tile horizontally, with formats like 1,2 for 1 window on the top of the screen, 2 on the bottom. And so on and so forth. Users should also be able to define their own arrangements, as well as arrangement rules.
4. Window Switching. Pressing ALT+TAB should switch between the different applications, ALT+~ between the various instances of the application in focus, and ALT+ESC between all windows. Pressing ALT+TAB repeatedly should allow one to switch from app to app, and should also bring up a temporary (so long as ALT is held down after TAB) menu, as such:

   1 App1 >
   2 App2 >
   3 App3 >
   4 App4 >

   In this menu system, pressing 1, 2, 3, or 4 could select the different apps, while the arrow keys could select a particular instance of the app which the highlight is over.

5. Hard Focusing. I hate sloppy focusing. Sloppy focusing allows one to accidentally switch the focus from one window to another. You may say that's ok -- just switch it back. But its really annoying when one is typing.
6. Automatic Cursor Movement. The mouse cursor should automatically move to the active application and the default location (i.e, default button). This saves the user alot of hand motion. The user should also be able to define automatic mouse movement; i.e., maybe the user doesn't want the mouse to automatically move to a certain program when launched.
7. Complete Keyboard Control. One should not need a mouse at all. One should be able to completely control one's WM from the keyboard. By the way, the old menu/keyboard system was vastly superior to the new one. F1 should bring up menu 1, F2 menu 2, and so on and so forth; this will probably mean that F1 brings up File, F2 brings up edit, F3 View, etc. Why should the user have to press two buttons (i.e., ALT+F) when one (F1) will do?
8. Minimization. Sometimes, we want to put a window away -- even though tabbed windowing is nice, sometimes we still want to minimize. Also, minimization should not be chaotic. Windows should minimize to a specific place, and preferrably that would be the dock -- not a separate minimization place, as is used for WindowMaker. This is the way minimization (and new programs not on the dock) are dealt with in MacOSX. Well, partly. When a window is minimized, it should go to its appicon on the dock. If there isn't an appicon for that program on the dock by default, one should be temporarily placed there when that application is run. Holding clicking on the appicon would bring up a list (iconified or not) of the various instances of that application running.
9. Universal Hide-Away File Menu . Apple has seen the light of the universal file menu, so has lwm. Why hasn't anyone else? Its idiotic to have a separate menu for every window open, when one universal menu at the top of the screen will do. This saves alot of screen space. Also, to save more screen space, that menu should automatically hide away when the mouse isn't at the far top of the screen. This saves more screen space.
10. Universal Hide-Away Toolbar. Just as its dumb for every window to have its own menu, its also dumb for every window to have its own toolbar. Why hasn't Apple figured that one out, you'd think it would be an obvious step along with making a universal file menu. This just wastes space. There should be a universal toolbar at the bottom of the screen for all programs, which would change when diffferent programs are brought into focus; alternatively, one could attach the universal toolbar to the universal file menu at the top of the screen, making them one “panel” and hide-away. Also, this universal toolbar should be hide-away, as is should the universal file menu.
11. Unique features for Right/Middle Mouse Clicks. Idealy, right clicking should bring up options menus, while middle clicking would bring up program menus. Why make the user go to the menu, when the menu can come to the user? I.e., middle clicking would bring up the file menu for that program, while right clicking would bring up options for the thing that's being right clicked on.
12. Root Menu . Should be brought up by middle click on the desktop. Should effectively be like the Apple Menu in OS X and the Start Menu -- provide alot of options/configurations, and all of the programs, utilities, and commands on your system.
13. Pinnable Menus . Users should be able to stick menu's -- dynamically -- in places they like them. Menus, however, should not have a title bar -- that just wastes space. Hold middle clicking on a menu and dragging it should "pin it".
14. Hide-Away Dock Docks are great, but they take up alot of space. Thus, they should hide away to the far left side of the screen, as can MacOSX's dock. Docks, however, should not shrink icons when there are many on them -- a "scroll down" feature (i.e., by hovering over a down arrow, or using the wheel button while over the dock) should be provided. By the way, while we're on docks, lets get rid of the squares in the WindowMaker like docks, and make the docks look more like OSX's dock -- not transparent, or animated, or that fancy stuff, but simply seamless, without the hard box-borders. Also, dragging a icon off of a dock should quit that program; middle clicking and dragging it off should remove that icon from the dock.
15. Desktop. For the most part, docks make desktops completely obsolete. Some people feel that docks are bit too rigid -- they feel trapped by them. I can understand that, as in WindowMaker, the dock is all icons enclosed in a square -- this does make you feel kind of trapped; however, this need not be. But despite the nice ordered benefits of docks, sometimes it nice to be able to go crazy with a desktop -- though I'm not in favor of forced desktop chaos. More options than "auto arrange" and "clena up" should be provided for the desktop. Users should be able to create icon alignment templates -- to, for example, automatically align icons in A L-shape.
16. Virtual Desktops. Sometimes, niceties like a dock for all applications running just aren't enough to manage what your doing. One may have several projects opened at once, and may want to organize them on entirely different "screens".
17. Column file navigation. Ok, this really doesn't have to do with the WM -- more to do with the file-navigator. But, still, this type of file navigator is great. I do not, however, encourage people who make WM's to get into the MS crazyness and blurry the boundaries of what's what. But perhaps a suggestion, for example, to try out the column file navigator would be good. Maybe even a link to the download.
18. Minimalism, minimal screen use, minimal resource utilization. None of these features require the WM to be a CPU/memory/hard-drive hog, nor do they require the WM to hog up screen space, nor do they require useless features like animation or the "X-clock". (clocks should be text-based). No one needs useless gadgets like the "resource graphs". A WM is not that cool; its not too sexy for me. I do not need to see it when I'm doing whatever I'm doing -- I need to see what I'm doing, not the WM. A good WM should be nearly transparent -- both in resource utilization and screen-space utilization.
19. Open Source Software/Free Software. This one is so obvious I almost forgot to mention it. If a WM is to succeed, it needs to have the benefits of an Open Source Software / Free Software community. This prevents it from being locked into a proprietary format. It also ensures that anyone can contribute to the code, or just look at it to analyze it. This means it would be covered under the GPL, LGPL, BSD, licenses, or any other license certified by the Open Source Inititive of the Free Software Foundation.