From TFS: "The surge in art-focused televisions comes down to two factors: smaller living spaces in cities where younger buyers lack dedicated rooms for large screens..."

So some people don't have much wall space and have to choose between a TV and a painting. For them, a TV that doubles as a painting - or vice-versa - would be very desirable. And being able to change the "art" readily is a pretty cool feature.

It's probably not something I'd want - it strikes me as a bit kitschy - but I do get the appeal.

Is that "stupid" from the standpoint of a tech-savvy user like you, or "stupid" from the perspective of an unsophisticated user who doesn't necessarily understand that he doesn't know what he's doing?

I don't use Windows, so I don't have any experience with OneDrive and I hope I never do. But given the problem descriptions I've read in several comments here - made by people who clearly aren't techno-peasants - I'm inclined to think that OneDrive's behaviour may at least be flaky. It may also behave differently on different systems an/or different versions or flavours of Windows. And maybe the UI and/or instructions aren't very good.

What I'm reading in these comments suggests that OneDrive may be a significant problem even for people who are nominally doing everything correctly. Even if that's not the case, it shouldn't be easy to trash your data while attempting to disable a feature that you don't want and didn't ask for.

Also, it's a total dick-move on Microsoft's part to keep stealthily re-enabling it when updates occur; that alone should make people wary. Windows and OneDrive may work well for some people - for now. Just remember that Microsoft isn't anyone's friend, and "altering the deal" is one of their favourite activities. They ARE mining users' data and files, so they WILL make it difficult for people to stop them from doing that.

You're right in that there's a choice to be made here. You're wrong in the assumption that the choice is between misery and not-misery.

We can choose to be more miserable in the short term, or we can reject that and foist a much greater level of misery on our future selves, kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids. TANSTAAFL.

Why just Europe? The whole world would be safer if Americans stayed in America and everyone else avoided the place.

We all live in one big ecosphere, and you taking a big dump on your patch may well negatively affect folks in other countries. But by all means keep trying to spread your American exceptionalism around the world. By all accounts that's going really well just now. /sarc

HP has its own "forces everyone" policies on any OS. They're well known for it, especially on Slashdot.

I have no love for Apple, but I truly hate HP because they live by vendor lock-in and by the "you buy it but really we own it" model of fucking over customers.

HP is legendary for being a bag of dicks, so painting them as a victim of Apple probably won't get you much traction in these parts.

They pay in downtime, and in the effort required to identify and attempt to solve the problem. That could be significant, as I doubt the average user thinks "oh, my mouse isn't working properly - must be a certification problem".

Wow, that junior high experience you had is both authoritarian and kinda creepy. I'm glad you were able to put your foot down and take care of your kid. That business of them not wanting you to 'interfere' in her education? I'm paranoid by nature, and what you describe sounds like indoctrination, and/or insecurity about having their ability scrutinized and judged.

Yeah, the class sizes are a problem in Canada too, although I suspect it's not quite as bad as in the US. I'm not sure about other provinces, but here in Ontario it's getting worse. And our Premier is in the pockets of developers and business, so the taxation and regulation which would reduce class sizes and make education better are off the table. The asshole basically lied and gaslit to have the Ontario Science Centre closed to benefit his developer buddies - that shows you his lack of regard for education. He had a successful business handed to him by his father, and reportedly he was a drug dealer in his younger days. I'm sure you know the type.

I think you're right. I rail against the ill effects of tech all the time, but the thought had never occurred to me. It's audacious, and for so many reasons it will probably never happen. That's too bad, because I believe we could solve a lot of problems by doing it.

Thanks. It doesn't seem to be that bad here in Canada. My wife and I are close to a couple of neighbours who are teachers and have three kids of their own. They complain about some of the restrictions and bureaucracy, but on the whole I get the impression that things are better here. A functioning set of social safety nets may have a lot to do with that. There's still a lot of Capitalist parasitism in our system; but at least higher education is more reasonably priced, and we don't go broke when someone in the family has a serious illness.

I totally agree, and my assigning too much responsibility to the schools was probably the result of 'writing from the hip'. My bad.

So in a society where parents have to work multiple jobs, and teachers don't have the autonomy / responsibility / conscientiousness / resources they need to do a good job, what are some things we can do to give kids better upbringings?

Good points - thanks for making them. Aside from eliminating all the billionaires and creating a much more level playing field, do you have any thoughts on how to make the situation better?

Too true. However, I suspect that a lot of kids whose parents aren't big idiots are still behind the eight-ball. Parents who work multiple jobs just to keep food in bellies and to keep their families physically healthy, may simply not have the resources to provide much emotional and intellectual support and guidance. So I'd say that it's a societal problem and we need to deal with it at that scale. But of course the billionaires don't want that to happen...

Can't have it both ways. In an awful lot of homes both parents work, and often have two or more jobs. And the State says the kids must go to school.

In a society that has both strong social safety nets and a high regard for same, your point has a lot of weight. In today's America, it's just not a compelling argument.

You've raised good points. That said, when I was in public school and high school, schools and teachers took a fair amount of responsibility for how kids were doing. It's possible that I was just luck; or maybe the ensuing decades have seen the enshittification of education.

Also, when the government mandates that students attend school, the parents' ability to exercise responsibility is limited. Very few parents have the wherewithal to home-school, so outside the relatively few hours they can spend with their kids, the only power they have is at the voting booth. So essentially, they have very little power.