I know loads of people who have anti-authoritarian spirit who take great care about where they say things, and try to clean up any record of what they've said.

Ah... the old "the .0000000001% of the population I know behave like x, therefore x is representative of the whole population" fallacy.

From your descriptions of how you use of Windows accessibility features, it sounds like you've figured out highly efficient usage patterns and your facility with navigating the UI seems (to me) a bit higher than even many expert users. So, manipulating a different set of accessibility interface may not be comfortable or as useful for you, which totally makes sense. To answer your question about contrast:

OS X does have a separate slider and checkbox for contrast.

I don't use these regularly so can't comment on their usefulness. When I manipulate them, they do noticeably affect the display contrast, so much so that when the contrast slider is high enough, font edges of text and other UI elements start to wash out.

OS X does not implement themes and, like you, I would be ALL OVER a system-supported dark/professional theme. (With the latest version of OS X, Apple has introduced an extensions framework which opens a path to vendor-supported UI theming. But even if this is the direction OS X is headed, I would not expect custom themes for at least a couple more years.)

I have good corrected vision, so I don't use the magnifier regularly. I occasionally do fiddly UI work and it works OK enough for me in that instance. It has some customizability but not a whole lot.

On the customization front, I use a third-party piece of software that I sort of think of as my personal API for the UI (as well as much of the command line and UNIX layer). That software is Keyboard Maestro. It is definitely worth checking out if you regularly use a Mac-like machine ; ).

Not trying to troll (honest), but you but have you looked into Macintosh systems? The visual accessibility features are invoked at the level of the graphics layer (Quartz, I believe) so there's no futzing with colors as such.

For example, inverting colors (which is how I compute 99% of the time) cannot be overridden by third-party software. (The current trend for "professional" UIs, which avoids the black-text-on-white-background usability nightmare of most software and websites, makes me glad I can toggle this setting using a keyboard shortcut).

For your use case, there is an adjustable contrast setting that can be customized to the point of making your computer look like a Warhol painting if you want (thankfully, there is also the option to desaturate colors so the high-contrast display all black and white).

If you absolutely have to have particular Windows or Linux software, you could run those OS'es as VM guests, which is not ideal but at least you'll have access to the accessibility features in your host OS.

One of the things Apple gets better than many other software companies is accessibility. It's not perfect, but in my experience it's very good.

YMMV

"Home" or "end" keys? Please.

Pro user tips: Ctrl-A gets you to the beginning of the line and Crtl-E to the line's end. This also works in web-based text input fields like Slashdot's and Google's (which may be a product of using Mac-compatible web browsers).

our healthcare system sucks because we tolerate these parasites on our system that have to "profit" for some reason. there's no competition. so they just siphon profit and buy off our legislators and regulators to keep the money train flowing

they are natural monopolies

they are monopolies alone, no government needed to make them

you don't spend billions to build a hospital across the street from another. there's no free market. we're not talking about nail salons

you don't go shopping for an oncologist based on cost. you don't shop around for hospitals while you are having a heart attack. there's no capitalism here

so we need government control, rather than make believing a magic free market fairy fixes things

i'm not a socialist or a statist. specifically on the topic of natural monopolies *alone*, universal payer is the least worst option

citation: all of our social and economic peers: uk, canada, japan, germany, australia, etc: they spend far less on healthcare, and have higher quality healthcare. and it's all government controlled

our bullshit system persists because our government is corrupted. we need to fix the corruption, then kick out the parasites

the lawyer seeks out the victim

if you ever are the victim of a newsworthy accident/ crime, you will get cold called by a number of lawyers, who want to represent you pro bono

because such cases gild their CV, get their name out there. free advertising

some lawyers, they seek out interesting strange and noteworthy cases only. out of ego, fame, crank cause, adrenaline, hero complex, whatever:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G...

etc.

If you choose not to use the tools available, well don't expect anyone to have sympathy for you or marvel at how hard you had it. You've only yourself to blame. When I wish to mount something in my house I get out a laser level, cordless electric drill with titanium bits, and so on. As such things get put up easily, quickly, and dead level. You could do the same with a rock and sharpened metal pieces, but don't expect me to be impressed with how long it took you or the problems with the results. You could use modern tools, if you chose.

you mean you're a hopeless idealist who think things have to be perfect?

i'm glad you agree we need to get rid of corruption

but i'm mystified how you think the country's obvious success has nothing to do with democracy, however imperfectly implemented

i've been commenting on slashdot for years. there's always this steady drip of comments from grammar (punctuation?) nazis like yourself. do you see me changing or caring?

if you don't like the formatting of my comment, don't read it. i don't owe you anything. you're not paying me

this is an informal comment board, not a doctoral thesis. get over yourself

yes, exactly

and that's exactly the next step with a weakened government: corporation owned armies abusing you with no recourse for your rights

oh, i'm making that up? it's science fiction?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...

By the early 1890s, the Pinkerton National Detective Agency employed more agents than there were members of the standing army of the United States of America.

During the labor strikes of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, businessmen hired the Pinkerton Agency to infiltrate unions, supply guards, keep strikers and suspected unionists out of factories, as well as recruiting goon squads to intimidate workers. One such confrontation was the Homestead Strike of 1892, in which Pinkerton agents were called in to reinforce the strikebreaking measures of industrialist Henry Clay Frick, acting on behalf of Andrew Carnegie.[citation needed] The ensuing battle between Pinkerton agents and striking workers led to the deaths of seven Pinkerton agents and nine steelworkers.[4] The Pinkertons were also used as guards in coal, iron, and lumber disputes in Illinois, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia as well as the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 and the Battle of Blair Mountain in 1921. The organization was pejoratively called the "Pinks" by its opponents.

now remember dick cheney and his adventure with blackwater

weaken the government and blackwater expands exponentially, and corporate goons are now stepping on your throat: "get back to work slave, i mean citizen. if you have a problem with our enforcement activities, please see the corporation owned courts, or attempt to fight our legion of well-funded lawyers when you can barely get enough to eat, because we've let 'the market decide' your salary"

you look around the world at kleptocracies, warlords, mafias... you really fucking believe government has a monopoly on force?

if there is no government army, it's not suddenly peace and happiness, it's fucking hell

where do you morons come from with your bullshit unexamined beliefs?

Yeah, but we're already storing it, anyway. I might be nuts but from what I've seen if we were to take 10 or 15 square miles of land - totally insignificant when you look at the size of our country - and decide that it was going to be a nasty radioactive place but that we would work to keep it contained and do whatever we need there - seems like we could do it. But nobody wants that "in their back yard".

Because sorry, but that's really what they've become. If each was a masterpiece like the original book, I'd be all on board. However they aren't. They are a mess of characters nobody cares about.

I think some forget, or never knew, that his first book was published 1996. This guy is not a fast writer.

Personally doesn't bother me, since I stopped reading after the third book because the quality tanked so hard. The original Game of Thrones is my all time favourite fantasy novel and I will recommend it all the time. A Clash of Kings was good, but a major step down. I enjoyed it though. A Storm of Swords wasn't very good at all.When A Feast for Crows I asked some people and the answer I universally got was "don't bother" so I didn't. It was also a bit harder to maintain the "givashit" with 5 years intervening instead of 2.

It seems like he more or less ran out of ideas and has bogged things down in to a whole bunch of characters nobody cares about. Ok, he can do as he pleases, but I'll keep my money thanks.

we have competing ambulance services here in the usa too

but they will take you to a further away hospital they have financial agreements with (fuck your actual health emergency)

and if you don't have insurance you get a life destroying huge bill (because health insurance is a "choice")

agreed (with the european part, fuck your grammar demands)

http://slashdot.org/comments.p...