You know that all you have to do is to click the lower left hand corner of the screen to bring up the desktop, right? It took you 20 minutes to figure that out?

Sure if that's all that was different. I wanted to see how different options were controlled (control panel issues), had weird things happen when moving around the mouse (hot corners etc) and other nuisances. Even after I got to the desktop, the easy list of everything in a start menu was missing.

Again, could've learned it, could've figured it out, there are workarounds, it's not rocket science. BUT WHY? Individually each thing is minor, but the cumulative effect is damned annoying. Why would a company unnecessarily aggravate so many of their users? If you wanted a single OS for tablets and other PCs, give each the interface best suited to it.

In the last 6 months I've bought 2 computers, a desktop and a laptop. And both times I went well out of my way to avoid Win8.

Now I consider myself at least slightly more computer savvy than the average individual, and when I went to Best Buy to play around with Windows 8 (since I'd heard it was different) the 20 minute trial I gave it was VERY FRUSTRATING. I managed to figure things out a bit, and I had no doubt with some time and internet searching I could figure the rest out, but I had no desire to!!

I didn't want to spend time figuring it out! It just pissed me off. I needed a desktop very urgently, and was planning on buying a new computer and buying a copy of Win7 online and just wiping off Win8.

(Side Note: Basic economic supply and demand, Pro Edition of Win8 cost ~$60, Home Edition of Win7 online cost ~$150. Hmmmmmm)

I got lucky because the guy working at Best Buy said they had a desktop at 25% off only because it had Win7. Looked at the tech specs, was good, just what I wanted and left happy, getting a discount to get what I wanted.

A few months later I needed a laptop (was travelling a lot). I deliberately went to the Lenovo and Dell business line sections to search since the machines for business users still have Win7 (ended up getting a ThinkPad).

Now, I paid the MS Win tax regardless both times. I wanted a Windows machine. But Win 8 so frustrated me that I went out of my way to avoid it, when it would've been simpler to just buy a machine with it. I was ready to spend more online to buy Win7 and overwrite the default installation.

I can't be the only one that's done this recently.

There is a key important point missing in this argument (didn't read TFA, might be there). And that is that most of these foreign students in STEM fields are in US grad schools, not undergrad; and the undergrads pay tuition (often at full price with no aid) anyway.

For the grad students, you could say well we won't help others become competitive by denying them admission, but who will do all the research at US universities that actually makes them so good? US universities are world renown due to the publications, IP they generate, etc. Guess what, the vast majority of the grad students who do all the work are foreign. Take them out, and very soon the US universities won't be so good.

And it's not as if the foreign students are displacing Americans. Believe you me, most grad departments and Professors would prefer Americans, but Americans in general don't want to go to Grad school for STEM fields.

That was one of the coolest things I have ever seen! Thanks for sharing that Slashdot!

Some interesting observations/thoughts I had watching that (most of them centered around things I never thought about but are obvious once you think it through):
1) Never thought about it, but of course without any gravity, hair does not fall straight down, so her hair is flying in all directions giving a slightly âoecrazedâ look.
2) Very cool to see how they sleep, and the cozy little cubbies they have
3) Again never thought about it, but all the exercise equipment like bikes are not rigidly but rather loosely attached so the walls of the station, otherwise the force they exert during exercise will actually be exerted on the station itself, which would not be good, so they exert force, and the machines just kind of bounce around a bit. I wonder how that affects the quality of the exercise as you have to constantly adjust to a moving platform.
4) It was fascinating to see some of the mundane things like the bathroom shown. One could argue it is not the most PR/polished thing to show, but it was very cool to see how they have thought through everything. Again, something else that did not occur to me but is obvious in hindsight is that the waste disposal tubes have a little bit of suction in them so that the waste matter is pulled away from the person and the station.
5) The port for solid, #2 waste is really small, and she made a good point about aiming well. I shudder to think about occasions when somebody has more of a liquid #2 waste due to indigestion or other problems.
6) They have clips everywhere to clip things on to so they do not fly away. All the spare parts were tied down with rope. They also have strips of cloth or something to clamp down their feet so they do not fly around everywhere
7) She can identify the different cloud and soil types and can figure out what part of the world they are over by just those!

She is a funny, very personable and good guide. Definitely worth watching!

Some other questions I had after watching that they did no get into are how they handle dust, and other matter shed by the human body, hair, skin, etc. There is little to no bacteria there to decompose it and it will get lodged into places.

Also, what about laundry? Water tends to float around, so what about sweat, while working hard or exercising?

1) Can the older folks actually remember all their passwords? Or are they writing them down?

2) On a related note, if they only have one or two passwords to remember (email and maybe something else) that's easier than younger more tech-savvy individuals who may be trying to remember MANY MANY passwords (email 1, email 2, bank account 1, bank account 2, social media website 1, 2, 3, online forum 1, 2, brokerage 1, 2, iTunes Store, Amazon, Ebay, some app, electricity bill, wireless plan, phone plan, credit card 1, 2 ,3, etc, etc, etc).

I am by no means young, I'm 31, but am part of a more tech savvy generation. I have so many passwords to remember, even after trying to keep them the same, that now I have a whole Gmail label called login info where I store my passwords for everything. Not the actual password but mnemonics that are relevant to me like :"firsthousenum+first name first crush, no space or caps" which would be the street address (house number ) of my first house and the first name of the first girl I had a crush on, with no spaces or Capital letters. That is just an illustrative example, they're actually more obscure.

And this is after I made a concentrated effort to have categories of passwords, like all financial ones (bank, credit card, brokerage, etc) would be the same, but different systems have different requirements (letters, capitals, numbers, special characters, length) that it didn't work out, plus some force you to change passwords periodically, it's a mess.

On a different but kind of password related note, I wish that there would be a concept of a temporary password to use for accounts. For instance, I recently travelled abroad for a week, and was worried about key loggers or some other stuff getting my gmail password when I log on in hotels, cafes, other people's houses. What I would've loved is to set up a temporary Gmail password that was only valid for 1 week (in addition to my normal one) and use that while traveling. The temporary password would have limited access, I could send and read emails, but not change any account settings (like passwords, etc.) That would've been fantastic.

Instead, I changed my Gmail password to another one, but now that I'm back, Gmail won't let me change my password back to the original one (as previous passwords can't be reused). This is something new as I'd done this before while traveling.

So I drive a car with a manual transmission. That means that for the most part if I'm driving long distances on the highway, and I drive about 700 miles a week, I usually have my left hand (US driver here) at the 6'oclock position, and right hand on the gearstick, or fiddling with the radio, or just resting. Sometimes when I want to rest my left arm on the door, I switch to the 8 or 9 o'clock position.

But that's during long stretches on the highway. On local roads, as well as during heavy highway traffic, I always put both hands on the wheel (unless switching gears). Also, in bad weather (rain, snow etc), both hands are on the wheel. I unconsciously tend for the 9-3 combo rather than the 10-2 or 8-4. I think that just feels like I have more control on the wheel.

No real point besides the fact that what type of road I'm on and the traffic conditions impact this. Also when I rent a car (which are all automatic transmission), I've noticed that my right hand tends to stay on top of the gear stick, even though once in D, there are no gears to change.

Interesting tangent: Going from manual to automatic, there was a mistake I made once, adn it's one you only make once. The left foot was automatically searching for the clutch, and found a pedal. Unfortunately it was the brake pedal.. The clutch is pressed usually all the way, and the brake is lightly tapped (depending on the situation). My car came to a very sharp and abrupt stop.

Learned the lesson that time. For a time afterwards, the left leg would by all the way to the left with my left arm/elbow firmly resting on it to prevent that from occuring again. As the years have gone by, I've relaxed it a but, but still live in fear of when in a risky/accident-like traffic situation in a rental car, my instincts will kick in and my left foot will slam on the brakes again.

So I got the email in my Gmail account, which is how I've signed up for home delivery of the NYT. I'll foolishly admit that I was fooled, and called the number in the email and got the recorded message saying that the line was busy (maybe that was the whole point, now they've got my number too).

Anyway, I didn't want to lose the delivery, so I marked the email as unread so that I could address it later and logged out of Gmail.

After about 20/30 minutes when this story broke on /. and other sties, I figured I'd log back into Gmail, check my email (what you don't compulsively check email?) and delete this spam. I couldn't find it in my inbox! I checked the trash thinking I may have deleted it, but it wasn't there. Then I thought to check the SPAM folder, and sure enough it was in there, still marked as unread.

Gmail updated the spam policy to classify this specific email as spam in about 20 minutes, where as it had made it into my inbox before.

Upon reflection, it's not surprising, I'm sure a lot of users marked it as SPAM in the last 20 minutes, but still was interesting for me to note. Gmail's spam filter is usually pretty good, I NEVER even look in the spam folder (even for false positives) so this was an interesting experience. I wonder if I'd left it marked as "read" and not remarked it as "unread" if it would still have been moved out from my inbox to the spam list?

So this story is based off the CNN documentary "Black in America: Silicon Valley." I haven't seen the actual show, but CNN has been pushing it a lot the past week and showing clips from it.

One really interesting clip that I saw had an Indian who had experience with VCs and start-ups and was also a professor somewhere giving a talk to the African American entrepreneurs.

Now Asians in general, and Indians specifically I don't think are as rare in Silicon Valley and are found amongst high level executives. Additionally, this particular individual was well spoken and articulate, capable of creative thinking, didn't have a strong accent, and in other ways didn't fit the stereotype of an Indian caricature.

However the ONE thing that he said was to get a good looking white guy to be your front man when going to VCs. He said that when we wanted to get funding, he got a (admittedly very capable and accomplished) white guy to be his partner. He said that's just how things work in the Valley. The African American audience he was speaking to was very shocked by this.

The point made was that VCs look for what works. And if they see a bunch of "successful" start-up companies run by young white guys, that's what they look to fund. Plus add in the inherent bias towards good looking white guys in business who fit the common archetype (with as Dilbert says good hair).

While we're on the topic, what about women (white or otherwise)? Are VCs more likely to discount a company being led by women as they're not thought to be "techy"?

So, any thoughts form people with experience here, either for or against this argument. Do all races (not just African Americans) need Caucasian male partners to improve their chances for success.

This past episode of Saturday Night Live had a REALLY FUNNY sketch skewering Netflix and how fast they seem to be changing course and announcing new plans. It was unfortunately cut for time and didn't air, but is available on NBC's website:

http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/netflix-apology/1359563

It was the first thing I thought of when I read the Netflix email this morning. Very funny, apt and appropriate. Almost makes me respect SNL as being on the cutting edge again.