Will Cortana actually be useful on Xbox One? There's certainly potential, but if it's the same as Cortana on Win10, it'll just bring up Bing results of whatever is asked of it. Granted, due to lack of keyboard on XBOne, this is much more useful than on PC. But, I've got such a bad taste of Cortana from Win10, I'm a bit jaded. If Cortana could even just open default Windows apps, it might be useful... but so far the only thing that's been handy is asking the current temperature. Other than that, mistyped Bing searches, although sometimes entertaining, are for the most part useless.

I disagree about those being affected. The ones that aren't computer literate never changed the defaults anyway.

I've always removed CCC from my startups, I'm sure I'll do the same with Crimson.

Yeah, I don't like this excuse either. From a consumer side, I like being able to go an pick my Android phone based on hardware. If I have to start mixing an matching hardware and OS features, I'm going to end up eventually frustrated that the combination I want doesn't exist anymore, or just that it will take a long time to find the combo I want ... because the phone store employees aren't going to understand the variations. Dammit, I like being a lazy consumer!!!

>> - and then buy the same (or similar) apps for each of them twice?

I may be misunderstanding what you're getting at here, but when I buy an app for any one of my Android devices, it becomes available for download on all of my Android devices (they're all registered with my same Google account). Admittedly, I buy my apps through Google Play or Amazon App Store.

Considering many of the people I work with don't even understand the difference between Windows and Office, I'm guessing they won't realize Win8 is a new OS. Yes, they'll realize something is different, but they won't recognize it as a new operating system (not that they know what an OS is).

Though I'm not the AC that which you're responding to, I feel you're berating his use of Wikipedia when what you should be directing your conversation at is his point of view.

Legal argument aside, he used Wikipedia for what it's very good for: citing factual or directly inferred information, not information up for thats typically debatable. And the reason Wikipedia is good for that is because the users (are supposed to) cite their information.

In this case, his one sentence quote is backed up by citing four separate court cases.

If you don't like his argument based off of that information, that's fine. But to deride him for using Wikipedia, and then imply his resulting argument is faulty because no good can come of Wikipedia is frankly BS. Note: I'm referring to your opening and closing statements, not when you actually get to the issues at hand.

I apologize for venting my Wikihate frustrations towards you specifically, but I finally have time to reply this one of many, I feel, unwarranted assaults against a very useful source of information.

Wikipedia, like all things on the internet must be taken with a grain of salt, but unlike almost all other things on the internet, at least Wikipedia tells the user on what the information is based.

/rant

When I saw this was a thread about old keyboards, I was hoping I'd find someone recommending some newer quality keyboards.

I can add that I found the ABS Model M1 keyboard to be a great alternative to the very expensive boards (lists for $69.99, but I picked mine up on clearance for $40 a few years ago). I don't need any of the added "modern" functionality of media keys or backlight, but I did want a keyboard that had a solid, "springy" resistance, and a definite clicking sound when I used it. I just can't get by on the basic factory keyboards that come with computers out of the box. Those keyboards have the feel, and only slightly more effectiveness than typing into a bowl of pudding.

Granted, this ABS hardware has never had the solid response I got from my old IBM keyboards, and someday I'm sure dropping over $100 on a nice keyboard won't hurt my wallet or my spending conscience so bad. But in the meantime, this ABS board was a decent, cheap alternative.

To me the big deal to do with rape has nothing to do with sex, but as you said "forcing someone to do something". But that something is akin to losing something that you can never get back (innocence, security, etc.) ...not the kind of innocence like "Santa Claus isn't real?", but more like, "I can't be alone with someone physically stronger than me anymore because I've fully realized there's a possibility they may choose to roto-root my butthole with their penis."

Then on top of that emotional suck salad, there's still plenty of physically violent croutons on top. (and yes, I stole a line from Archer to explain my views on rape) Aside from just the basic beatdown that can happen, other side effects can go as far as infertility or death.

I honestly put rape higher on the list of horrible crimes than murder (as I do with many forms of dehabilitating torture), because at least the murder victim doesn't have to live with the consequences after the fact.

To focus even more narrowly on the part of the Metro UI that bothers me: Tiles.

I've been utterly perplexed by the (lack of) efficiency of this UI since the Win8 phones came out. But on the PC's it seems even more ridiculous. I simply don't understand how to find or organize everything. It seems like going seven steps back to the old Win3.11 File Manager interface where it's just a screen full of icons. The menu system introduced in Win95 is simply the most efficiency-inducing feature added to Windows (for me) in it's entire lifespan. No more searching for programs, it's just click Start - Programs - and one of about 10 categories I set up (much like I happily found the first time I logged into Ubuntu back in the day), and then the item I'm looking for that's never swimming with more that about 10 of it's brethren. It is maybe more mouse intensive, but I know EVERY time where to find what I'm looking for... and that for me has saved fistfuls of hair loss,

I agree and disagree with this.

1) I didn't just work. That was mostly due to hardware manufacturers still catching up. There were the same cries of "my printer won't work anymore!" when XP was introduced as when Vista came out.

2) I was absolutely NOT bloated. At least I'm using bloated in the performance sense. It came screaming out of the gates at boot up and things loaded quickly. I especially noticed this after coming over from Win2K machines.

3) It didn't just work (part 2). It definitely had some stability issues. It was WAY better than Win98 (I remember the twice a day reboot or crash cycle with Win98), but not nearly as stable as Win2K. SP2 alleviated the vast majority of stability issues (don't reboot for a week? no problem!), but performance suffered. It was definitely slower after SP2 (especially noticeable on slower machines), but the stability and security issues rolled into SP2 were worth the performance hit.

This, this, 1000 times this! Connecting to another computer/printer on the network is just this simple on any version of Windows. Typically, if the printer install is difficult, it's due to a horrible installer made by the manufacturer (I'm looking at you, HP).

I've experienced this constant crashing too with my HTC phones (a few Moguls back in the day and a Touch Pro 2 now). I'd always written it off to the crappy OS's: Win Mobile 5.0, 6.0 and 6.5 ... could it be that the hardware is also crap?

>>1. Microsoft wants to ask a lot of obnoxious and hard to understand questions during installation and initialization of newer versions.

THIS.

This drives me crazy every time. You can't just upgrade to a new browser, you have to upgrade and shut off a bunch of "features" you don't want.

>>Giggling teenage girls post as ACs on /.?

I was expecting her to break out into Katy Perry lyrics...