I hereby declare the AskWoody Festivus Airing of Grievances officially open.[See the full post at: Official AskWoody Festivus Airing of Grievances]
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Official AskWoody Festivus Airing of Grievances
- This topic has 92 replies, 38 voices, and was last updated 7 years, 4 months ago by
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Wow, there’s so much, but then taking out politics brings the subject matter down a lot. I’d have to say that noise is way up there on my list. I mainly get it from vehicles roaring up and down the road in front of my house. They sound like they have very little or no mufflers, and they love to rev their engines out in first and second gears – even when going downhill!
Add to that the juveniles who seem to get their jollies by playing rap on their 1000 watt car audio systems with twin 12 to 15 inch subwoofers at full blast. I hear them 1/4 mile away, and when they go by my house the windows rattle. It really amazes me that this kind of disturbance of the peace is allowed to go on year after year, decade after decade.
Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's -
I can honestly say no I didn’t. I knew some kids with loud mufflers, but back in the 60’s and 70’s if you got too loud you got pulled over by a cop and were given a repair ticket to get the noisy muffler fixed. Also, in the same time frame, car radios were normally 4 watts, and I found an after-market 30 watt amplifier that I used with some 6″ x 9″ speakers in the rear behind the rear seat. Also, in those days we new if we made noise and disturbed the people in a residential neighborhood, our parents would be notified and we’d be in trouble!
Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's -
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I know exactly what you mean. It’s weird because all I can think most of the time I hear a car like that is “Why would you want your car to sound like a lawnmower?” Well, I still haven’t figured it out, but I rarely hear an example that sounds good. All these cars sound terrible IMO. However, I do know that these loud exhaust systems increase horsepower by anywhere from a few HP to well over 10 by increasing airflow. It depends on the car, but still, I agree that cars shouldn’t be allowed to make that much noise. Motorcycles, too!
As for the car stereos, I did that though not with rap music and not with a subwoofer in the back. Especially when I just got it, I liked playing it loud. It was nowhere near as loud as what you’re talking about, but the joke will be on them when they get to be in their 30’s / 40’s and have already partially lost their hearing.
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Headlining my list of grievances has got to be Microsoft by a wide margin. They have successfully alienated their vast user network. Yet, the execs seem to be happy as clams and making oodles of money. Microsoft is focused on this and the next few quarters and has no idea or care of what happens a year or more from now.
Microsoft has essentially killed Windows! The silly excuse of what they call Windows (10) is outrageously inept and has little if any resemblance to any Windows OS that I or 95% of my clients will every buy. Microsoft initially blamed the demise of PCs on smart phones and tablets, but in fact brought about the greatest sales boom in Apple history by withdrawing Windows 7 from the market and offering a sad excuse for an OS named Win8. Microsoft itself has caused the death of the PC industry by killing Windows.
Microsoft iced the cake by ruining the long respected Windows Update. They have made a complete mess of WU. It is now much more risky to allow Microsoft to update your system, then to not apply any updates at all.
The lights are on, but no one who has any idea of how to run a Windows business remains at Microsoft. Everyone who is capable has long fled for greener pastures. We, the users, made them rich beyond their imaginations.
Microsoft has joined the list of failed major tech booms — Wang, DEC, IBM, Kodak, the list is long.
Microsoft has no product that I recommend to any of my clients or friends. I have even gone to the point of recommending Apple. Which has many bad characteristics too, but at least they truly know how to serve their loyal customer base.
CT
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Bravo CT!
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Agreed. It’s funny, just yesterday I took some holiday cookies over to my neighbors and they had some visitors. My neighbor was asking me how much I knew about Windows 7 because they needed help doing something with it and we got into the discussion about Windows 10. One of the visitors there I think he said he was an IT guy and said all of the PC’s at work had Windows 10 and that it was an absolute nightmare having to deal with it. There’s always something going wrong somewhere and every time they think they have it all sorted, something else goes wrong. He said he’d never use Windows 10 at home for those reasons and implied that there’s a lot of other people that feel that way. Even people who aren’t all that tech savvy know enough to know they should steer far clear of Windows 10 and many businesses who have it are regretting it.
I see this coming to a head as we approach 2020’s EOL for Windows 7 and that Windows 10 will not ultimately survive. Whether that means an exodus to Apple, Linux or something else, I think an exodus will happen if Windows 10 is all Microsoft is going to be offering. I also expect Windows 7 to have a higher usage percentage four years after EOL than XP has by a significant margin.
It is certainly a shame that things have come to this and I also agree that PC sales have declined because Microsoft has ruined Windows. It’s not because people don’t want home PC’s anymore. It’s because the company that pretty much had a monopoly on PC OS’s decided to ruin the OS and pull the rug out from under the feet of their loyal customer base. Some folks (fanboys) don’t seem to mind it all that much, but the majority of others do mind. This building is coming down. The only question is what’s going to replace it? The PC will see a huge comeback in the future. The only question is what OS will they be running? This is the time for Linux to make it’s move, but the door is open for everyone to seize this now dormant market just waiting for the next OS to bring it back to life.
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The only question is what’s going to replace it? The PC will see a huge comeback in the future. The only question is what OS will they be running? This is the time for Linux to make it’s move, but the door is open for everyone to seize this now dormant market just waiting for the next OS to bring it back to life.
For the average user, there is no alternative to the ever-closing walled gardens of Microsoft, Apple or Google. But for myself, I have worked my way up to have enough understanding of PCs to find an alternative path.
For me, this will probably look like some distro of Linux installed into a capable Chromebook using Crouton:
https://www.pcworld.com/article/3187441/computers/how-to-install-linux-on-a-chromebook.html
The methods available now aren’t too complicated and the result operates almost as securely and trouble-free as a modified Windows PC in dual-boot mode. Not as easy and safe as firing up a pure Chromebook, but there is a real OS in there, with real desktop apps, and enough hardware and storage to run the desktop apps at full power. Other articles show and tell how to add the external storage which is used mostly to back up data and system images of Linux and ChromeOS (Data and settings only in the case of ChromeOS).
None of this is blood-simple, but it’s no more difficult than the dual-boot Intel NUC I use with Windows 10 and Linux now. And this Chromebook is travel sized, to a close approximation. At least until the TSA bans all electronic devices from airplanes.
It was the latest forced upgrade from Windows 10 Version 1703 to Windows 10 Version 1709, which wushowhide can no longer detect, which was the breaking point. The problem is fixable, but at what price, in terms of future effort and time? And what tricks will Redmond come up with next, to force everyone to do things on their schedule, the bugs be d***ed.
I’m done, Microsoft. Done forever.
-- rc primak
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At what price indeed.
More and more folks will join you. I will probably be pushed down the path myself at some point soon. I only remain with Windows because frankly Win 8.1 meets my needs completely still. Win 10 has simply not proven good enough to be the system running my hardware. Even if there were ONE thing it did better than the old versions it would be an incentive, but noooo, Microsoft could not even accomplish that.
In all of Microsoft, could no one think up (and implement) even one KILLER APP that would have made it attractive for a computing expert to brave the cloud-connected world? Notice how they don’t dare move their real applications (Visual Studio, Office, etc.) over to Metro/Modern/Universal/Fluent/Can’t even think up a good name for the stupid thing. Maybe it just can’t be done.
-Noel
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Linux is the goal. I run Zorin in a VM and will be putting it on it’s own SSD once I have the extra cash to throw at it and put a 2-bay NAS on it as well. This coming year is probably the year. The only question is will I be able to get everything working like I have in Windows? I think I probably can, but there’s things I just can’t test in a VM due to 3D acceleration issues. I’m up for the challenge and I already know several programs do work under Wine. I use mostly older stuff anyway because I’m comfortable with it and it does what I need, so I don’t foresee any serious issues aside from a learning curve.
However, I have never been a big fan of laptops. I prefer the high powered capacity of a desktop and don’t have much need to be able to carry a computer around with me everywhere. Anything I may need in an emergency can be done on a phone which is rarely needed. Besides, I’m not sure I really trust google all that much either.
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After using Microsoft’s operating systems for 35 years (starting with MS-DOS), I never thought that I would switch to Apple. But after persistent nags on Windows 7 computers to “upgrade” to Windows 10, ending in the debacle of redefining the behavior of “closing” a window, I had had enough of that company’s shenanigans. Accordingly, we are now happily running a couple of iMacs and a MacBook Pro in our household.
I still keep a Windows 7 PC going, however, for a couple of reasons. First, I custom built it with 2 CD/DVD drives, for quick cloning disks to play in my car. Second, the old Windows version of Quicken is vastly superior to the Mac version. Sometimes, older is better, and when updates for Windows 7 end in 2020, I can still run the PC off-line for the aforementioned tasks.
Rather than end this post with a complaint, I’d like to thank Woody for keeping this forum going. I read it regularly, even though I’m slowly migrating away from the Windows world.
This is my list …
- Black Hat Hackers – sociopaths at large
- Fraudulent bandwidth claims – as in ‘up to this speed’ that is never attainable
- Excessive charge for ‘handling’ on online shopping sites – unjust and deceitful practice
- The Cloud – where is the silver lining?
- Wind turbines – they are bird blenders (400,000 /yr chopped to pieces)
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Being blocked by people with a bottle of water/coffee in one hand and a “smart phone’ in the other.
The use of “gonna”/ “wanna” and “recommend me a ……”.
The killing of hand writing, spelling and grammar with computers.
The death of books/reading because of the internet.
The total over reliance on digital technology.
My grievance is with Windows 10. I want to upgrade from Windows 8.1, I really do, buuut…
as long as the updates are full of bugs, including Edge, there’s no way I will. I’ve been waiting over 2 years, & suspect I’ll keep waiting until Win 8.1 is about to hit end of life. When that happens, I’ll probably backup files to my external drive & buy a new PC with Windows 10. Probably buy Office 2016 or Office 2020 or whatever.
Bought a refurbished Windows 10 64-bit, currently updated to 22H2. Have broke the AC adapter cord going to the 8.1 machine, but before that, coaxed it into charging. Need to buy new adapter if wish to continue using it.
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It is a cultural idiom, and depends on where or by whom you were raised. I’m guessing Doc is accustomed to hearing ‘you’re welcome.’ It is how I was raised, though I cannot quite explain why it is grammatical. I found I had started to break up the monotony with an occasional ‘of course’ and was brought up short when someone politely asked I not say that. I was too flummoxed to get a question out though, and the moment passed.
My Junior High Spanish taught ‘it’s nothing’, which I think is even less appealing than ‘no problem’. My French is failing me at the moment, but it does not matter as it is not consistent across English, or even across the US for that matter.
In short, peeves may not be peevish to everyone. But Festivus is about releasing the peeve from your heavy brow, to begin the new year lighter.
[edit: on reading later realized I missed the direct answer. ‘No problem’ might imply what ‘It’s nothing’ says more directly. That the thing you are thanking me for has so little value to me, or was of such insignificant effort on my part that I am confused as to why you attach so much value to it. Yeah, it’s a lot to hang on two little words, but tone of voice can do that sometimes. ]
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@ Paul
Thank you!
I was having trouble understanding what the issue might have been that *Doc* was referring to.
Your explanation was enlightening!
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My number ONE grievance, is with none other than society:
This “modern” de-emphasis on detail, shunning of craftsmanship, focus on ANYTHING but getting things right… It’s not going to end well!
- Windows as a never-stable service.
- Consumer products that don’t even work out of the box and aren’t serviceable.
- Planned obsolescence (iPhone update anyone?).
Sheesh!
Dumbing down is SO in fashion; everyone wants to think like an executive and leave the details to someone else! As if life is really that easy. NOT!
We’re being conditioned not only to accept “shiny, maybe not even good enough, certainly not excellent” but also to socially belittle those who care about excellence. Presumably all this makes us more prolific consumers.
What the heck is wrong with people?!?
I’ve got news for you, society, from an engineer of some 40 years experience: If NO ONE cares about the details, everything is just going to stop working! You won’t “be able to buy a new one” that actually works!
DON’T ACCEPT JUNK!
-Noel
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Agree completely. I would like to add to that a bit. I was thinking about the planned obsolescence thing yesterday and realized this really isn’t just a tech thing. I remember when a good pair of tennis/walking shoes would last a few years easily, but I need to buy a new pair every year now because the rubber on the bottom wears off completely in a few spots and the threads that hold together the shoe around the toes break and come apart in just six months or less. I find that not even socks last as long anymore. Even food products that come with resealable bags, you’re lucky if the ziplock part of the bag lasts as long as the food in the bag. Everything is declining in quality IMO.
Speaking of “society”, there’s also the news media. I remember when the news was there to inform people, but that’s no longer the case now. The news is now there to entertain people with propaganda and very few people can even tell the difference anymore between news and propaganda. Society is falling apart at the seams in more ways than one and there’s no longer any laws to stop the news media from continuously reporting propaganda and speculating on nothing instead of reporting real news. I am amazed at how well propaganda works in this country, but then again maybe I shouldn’t be.
Net neutrality. How is this story going to end? The FCC has broken laws in order to get this repealed. Hopefully, the lawsuits are successful. We really need an open internet now more than ever as people begin to wake up. Ultimately, I think the answer will be municipal internet service so we have an option to get away from the ISP giants like Comcast and Verizon. Colorado and Tennessee have already done this and it’s worked well for them. It’s time for the other states to do the same. We have to fight back against these greedy corporations.
Socially belittling people is something I still don’t really understand to a large extent. Anyone who goes against the grain apparently deserves ridicule for not falling in line with everyone else. I can’t accept that either. I think people go along with the “consuming” thing because they have been tricked into thinking that consuming and spending money is the key to happiness and boy do they spend. They spend themselves right into debt as more and more money gets funneled to the 1%. This plan is, unfortunately, working way too well.
Society in general is trending in the wrong direction and seemingly can’t get there fast enough, but I still have hope for change. I think there are more people waking up to these and other realities of the world. There are perhaps more people awake or waking up now than ever before and that is a good thing. I don’t know if it’s enough, though. These are interesting times. Unfortunately, it’s mostly for the wrong reasons.
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Noel:
Sounds like you have read my mind.You think the same as i do. This world seems to not care about excellence any more, take inferior quality on everything and shut up. Not me, I’ve cared about excellence all my life. I’m now 73 and will go to my grave wanting excellence in everything I do. Bottom line though, I’m grateful I have a warm home to live in and food on my table and in our world of today I’m fairly safe. I’m so thankful for what I have. Thank you to all of you on ASK Woody Forum for all you have helped me with through the years. You’ve made my road a lot smoother. A VERY SAFE, WARM, AND MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL.
HERBERT KELLY JR
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I know what you mean, Noel. Another one that bothers me is how 10 years ago, you went to site say looking for a library, or documentation on a library and everything you needed fit on one screen, and sometimes even a side bar with useful things like “Latest Stable 2.0.1 release, 2 days ago”
Fast forward to 2017, modern libraries/documentation now fill your entire screen with very little information, pastel colors, and usually with a stock photo of people drinking coffee around a laptop, then you have to scroll down to the next screen that usually has very little information and another random stock photo with another pastel color for objects. By the time you get to the information you want you’ve scrolled 7 of these full screen boxes that contain very little information. Oh, and they’re always really slow to load.
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Somewhere someone made a few more bucks with “more Marketing”, and a whole lot of someone elses took that to mean “all Marketing with no substance at all” is a great way to make money!
-Noel
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I will restrict myself to tech:
Microsoft for their clueless understanding of or refusal to understand what the vast majority of users need and want from an OS. Users basically want an OS that behaves consistently and is stable with reasonable multi-year support. Add to this, their refusal to do proper prerelease testing. I am not sure they do anything resembling proper unit testing speaking as developer.
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Homer, to Lisa: “What are YOU so mopey about?”
Lisa: “Nothing.”
Marge: “Lisa, tell your father.”
Lisa: “Mr. Bergstrom left today.”
Homer: “Oh?”
Lisa: “He’s gone. Forever.”
Homer: “And?”
Lisa: “I didn’t think you’d understand.”
Homer: “Hey! Just because I don’t care doesn’t mean I don’t understand!”
Homer could just as well be Microsoft in that last line.
Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)
Have so enjoyed seeing the many posts above … many strike a very close personal resonance! I especially enjoy seeing what Noel has to say.
So, my *Official AskWoody Festivus Airing of Grievances* is ….
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Aaaah, I can’t … I promised I wouldn’t … so I shouldn’t … aargh, biting my tongue ’til it hurts …………………………………………
So, just to let you know, I have a *grievance*.
Thank you Woody so I could air this out! I feel much better now.
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Floating HTML elements, the nonsense that follows you as you scroll up and down web pages.
The social media icons, the jump-to-top icons, the site menu bars, the list of “related” posts, the list of other posts “selected just for me”. All the “vitally important” stuff that site developers think are too hard to scroll the page to get to, so they litter screens to try and help. To me they’re no less annoying than popups.
Needless to say, the Firefox addon Element Hiding Helper for AdBlock Plus gets a good workout here. If it chases me, it gets deleted. 🙂
Thanks to Woody for a great site and top notch articles, and Season’s Greetings to All…
Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
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154043 “Floating HTML elements, the nonsense that follows you as you scroll up and down web pages. The social media icons, the jump-to-top icons, the site menu bars, the list of “related” posts, the list of other posts “selected just for me”. All the “vitally important” stuff that site developers think are too hard to scroll the page to get to, so they litter screens to try and help. To me they’re no less annoying than popups.”
Firefox reader view offers some relief.
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Some have struck a chord with me already so, other additional grievances are:
Extended TV advertising slot time during the festive season viewing, Holiday Adverts after Christmas and new year, Fake News, Mobile Phone Batteries, Sheople (people who are followers of the majority irrespective of knowledge) and finally people with no manners or etiquette.
[edit] my typo’s and correcting them..
BTW: Merry Christmas to Woody, all the MVP’s and Loungers!
Windows - commercial by definition and now function...1 user thanked author for this post.
I asked the penguins for a list of grievances. This is what they said:
1. Woody being so penguinist when it comes to religious festivals.
2. People assuming that they’re scared of being eaten by polar bears when they actually live a planet apart.
3. Fish that taste of plastic.
4. Cold weather. (I know – I didn’t dare ask…)
5. That someone sells a chocolate biscuit called a Penguin and they don’t get any royalties.They do, however, send compliments of the season to one and all no matter what season you are celebrating.
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OK. I confess. I’m a closet penguinista.
Give my regards to the waddle….
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GOOGLE! Google should be disbanded as a company, and their board of directors and executive officers all jailed for a long time for their incessant and pervasive invasion of everyone’s privacy.
Just about every website you go to has Google scripts running in the background, allowing Google to gather ever more and more information about everyone. And their free products aren’t really free; you pay for them with your most personal information, which they then turn around and market.
Google StreetView cars are continually driving around, photographing everything, and then posting it on their website via Google Maps. And they combine that with the Aerial View, giving every unsavory character in the world a huge amount of information about you and where you live.
Google sniffers were caught driving around, sniffing every hotspot to see if it was unsecured.
I have an idea which would be a win-win for everyone: liquidate Google, and give that money to the poor.
Group "L" (Linux Mint)
with Windows 10 running in a remote session on my file server-
This is a very difficult time of year for those who, for whatever circumstances, cannot be with their loved ones over the holiday season. It’s especially tough on those facing their first Christmas without someone who has passed away during the year.
Thinking of you, one and all.
Merry Christmas 🙂
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Incredibly thin, nearly invisible, collapsing or disappearing vertical scroll bars that you have to search for with the mouse pointer. Really, does a normal, visible vertical scroll bar really occupy that much screen space?
And obviously, Microsoft for not admitting that Windows 7 x64 sp1 is certainly the best desktop and laptop operating system available today, is better than 8/8.1 as well as any version of Win 10, and is such a stable and reliable OS that anyone has to wonder why Microsoft would ruin themselves as a corporation by repeatedly pushing less reliable and even inferior operating systems onto their customers by pressuring pc retail companies like Dell and HP to only offer desktops and laptops for sale to the retail consumer with their clearly less stable and inferior Windows 10 operating system.
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And obviously, Microsoft for not admitting that Windows 7 x64 sp1 is certainly the best desktop and laptop operating system available today, is better than 8/8.1 as well as any version of Win 10, and is such a stable and reliable OS that anyone has to wonder why Microsoft would ruin themselves as a corporation by repeatedly pushing less reliable and even inferior operating systems onto their customers by pressuring pc retail companies like Dell and HP to only offer desktops and laptops for sale to the retail consumer with their clearly less stable and inferior Windows 10 operating system.
Obviously, it’s mainly to stop corporations from saving costs by being able to buy and use Win 7/8.1 Ent Volume Licenses for about 10 years until EOL in 2020/2023. Previously, Win XP Ent VL could be bought and used for about 13 years.
Hence, Win 10 Ent SAC/CBB is auto-upgraded every 6 months to 12 months, each new Version of Win 10 has an EOL of about 18 months only and the purchased 10-year Win 10 Ent LTSC/LTSB Volume Licenses cost twice that of Win 10 Ent SAC/CBB = more profit$ for M$.
Hopefully, in 2020, more corporations will desert M$-Win 10 Ent unless M$ reverse course.
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Being explicitly playful here:
Well first off, your spelling it wrong! Any educated person knows full well the term is tonne! And (B), it is a metaphor for the crushing weight that is literally killing me!
As you can see hyperbole, or exaggerated use of an analogous substitute for comic effect can be a stress relieving measure to regain sanity in a bad situation.
If your initial post was also sarcastic I apologize for missing it. This possibility is suggested by your handle.
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Here’s one: I’ve done a ton of work keeping my Windows computer safely updated.
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Sounds like a lot of work to me! 🙂
-Noel
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It’s crushing!
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I grieve for the fact that an average smartphone user cannot reinstall Android/iOS and replace most of the inner hardware components, eg after a virus infection or hardware/software failure = forced to buy new smartphones = electronic pollution of the earth.
Seems, Planned Obsolescence has been built into smartphones and tablets, in order for the OEMs to make more profit$.
@ DrBonzo
Here’s one: I’ve done a ton of work keeping my Windows computer safely updated.
Ouch! I’ve used that one a lot (or should I say *a ton)!
I better not cross paths with @ Snowflake Theory, or else I’ll get a talking to about my *lack of education*!
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A few months ago, I got sideswiped by a guy who was texting. Hit the car on front bumper, passenger side, with my son in the back. Scary stuff. Of course, I couldn’t prove he was texting.
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A few months ago, I got sideswiped by a guy who was texting. Hit the car on front bumper, passenger side, with my son in the back. Scary stuff. Of course, I couldn’t prove he was texting.
Examining his cellphone records should do it, right?
http://www.mg4law.com/prove-hit-someone-texting-driving/
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My #1 pet peeve… Me: “Thank you.” Whomever: “No problem.” Yeah, it has nothing to do with M$, Apple, or computing/tech in general. It just grinds my gears. Merry Christmas AW peeps.
I guess I am guilty of saying “no problem”.
I also respond to thank you’s this way:
“happy to have helped”, or “it was my pleasure”.If I get the response of “no problem” to my thank you,
I interprete their response,
to my responses above.Now you have me wondering if my interpretations have been all wrong. ( ;
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Different cultures react differently. As noted, “de nada” in Spanish is the common reply and it literally means “of nothing.” In Thai it’s commonly “mai pen rai,” which is usually translated as “never mind.” In Arabic, it’s “shoukran” (more formally, “shoukran laka” to men, “shoukran laki” to women) which is roughly “thanks to you.”
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An expression of humility is the nicest response. “It’s nothing” or “think nothing of it” are respectful and humble, though simply “thank you / you’re welcome” may be slightly more direct and polite acknowledgements in American culture. “You’re welcome” contains “you”, which is important.
“I did something for you, you noticed and thanked me (which was nice), and I noticed you noticed and said, ‘You’re welcome.’ (which was nice, too).”
The word needs more nice, especially in our modern [dis]connected social culture.
On a related note, if a person is speaking publicly (e.g., being interviewed), and a host thanks them for being there, it’s surprising how few folks have a good response ready. My preference in that case is “My pleasure, thank you for having me.”
-Noel
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I did feel like my edited response above was still incomplete, and you highlighted the hazard.
What is heard as dismissive might have been meant as reassuring. And the two little words don’t give enough room to explain more clearly. I sincerely believe that the ‘no problem’ people are trying to say ‘that thing I did for you did not harm me or cost me my lunch, I have no new problems after helping you and I am very happy to have been able to do this for you.’ In a town where every one has heard this response and understands it, a moment of interaction does not stop the afternoon for a whole discussion. Please continue to express your culture. Variety is the spice… De gustibus…
I did look up and confirm that my blindspot for ‘bien sûr’ in response to ‘merci’, may be caused by my experience using ‘of course’ in the US Midwest. If anyone can help me understand, I would be grateful.
Best of all Doc was relieved of a temporary burden, and helped us discuss cultural relations. It’s a Festivus Miracle!!
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Google should be disbanded as a company, and their board of directors and executive officers all jailed for a long time for their incessant and pervasive invasion of everyone’s privacy.
It’s obnoxious and unethical, but it is it illegal?
Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
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I see what you did there. 🙂
Many things that are not illegal should not be done nonetheless.
Remember when “society” was more “polite”?
True or false: Your world is not complicated enough already, and you enjoy the challenges of trying to figure out things that should be plainly stated.
Ever have someone call and try to dupe you into giving up your credit card number on the phone? Accidentally leave a purse or wallet somewhere and have the credit cards immediately abused? Have your credit card number abused WITHOUT leaving it accidentally somewhere? How about buying a product advertised to do something but really it does only about half that?
Imagine a world where hard work and being honest and forthright pay off in tangible ways. By implication, misleading people to the point of dishonesty should NOT pay, right?
Societal norms are being changed, on purpose, by those who would seek to abuse others. Where is the justice?
-Noel
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Ever wondered how the world would be
Should there be no more egos to face,
No supposed glory to chase,
And no desire to win that ‘race’?Who said it’s to help us build and grow?
Not God,
Twas said by man to explain away,
The mess we find ourselves in today.Ever wondered how the world would be
If we all felt as He?
Loving, helping, playing, laughing,
Living as we were meant to be.Its up to us to make a choice,
To air our thoughts,
And give voice,
To silence all the gloom and doom
And let the positive have room.Ever wondered why
Our lord and master uses many ways
To draw us closer to him through our days?
Using our strengths and weaknesses,
He allows us to be witnesses
Of his truth and love.So in our search of our quest for right,
No matter how the other feels they might,
It’s important to believe we all
Are answering his loving call.by
Lizzytish© 2002Something I wrote a few years ago after I came to wonder how this world of ours would be if we didn’t have this perpetual slacking and waffle that went on in business and the world at large and where people just worked to the best of their ability and of course this would include those
at the top of the ladder especially. People in general have got so used to slacking off and just working to that minimum level, when if we all put that extra bit in it would be to everyone’s advantage. When a disaster or calamity occurs it becomes second nature for people to plough in and help those in need etc. It would be magic to harness that energy in everyday life for then it would create a world where we wouldn’t have to second guess the other, but we would all benefit so greatly from the wealth it created………. and I don’t just mean money, I mean experience, creativity, knowledge and love.As @AlexEiffel wondered one feels sometimes that the next generation have bypassed us with their ideas but hopefully they will still hold dear the attributes we consider to be important, like integrity, dependability, truthfulness, loyalty and love amongst others.
I hope I am not asking for too much! LT
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Well just a couple of “pet peeves” nothing to really write Home about but worth a mention:
CORTANA!!! many’s the time I have swore at my machine but now it actually talks back, a pain to disable, a pain to set up with and a consummate snoop to Boot, Hope where ever “Billy Boy Gates” is hanging these days hope he’s not listening. Many thx to Gunter Born for the next link, great web site check it out and an esteemed contributer in here; 🙂
http://borncity.com/win/2017/12/10/windows10-setup-stuck-in-cortana-hell/
(turn up the volume for full effect as @Noel and I are pretty much clean installers to a VHD as part of the ongoing Win10 evaluation process, seemingly we all are lol, we know this scenario all to well lol)
The next is all to mundane alas ….Oiii! HP enable external HDMI display to the Boot process, got me a nice new monitor here, having to rejig the arrangement to use, horror of Horrors, an Acer Aspire (yes you can really run Win7 even on the Win8.1 Acer machine after a struggle) as the main machine. “Grrrr” cost me a new 1tb drive and for the old(ish) HP a brand new 500GB SSD, not complaining too much or loudly though 😉Just remains to wish every one including special thnx to Woody and all the MVP’s for their invaluable help and Knowledge and a very Merry Xmas and a great New Year (Or SongKraan for those lovers of the Kingdom of Siam 🙂 yeah I know it comes later lol ) and may all your update woes be trivial ones 😉
3 users thanked author for this post.
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Songkran will have its own special post this year…. One of my favorite holidays anywhere.
1 user thanked author for this post.
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Sorry. I get sooooooo many emails from people who want to promote their packages that I just can’t begin to answer them all. (My inbox is over 1,000 unanswered at this moment.)
It’s a crowded field. Note that I still don’t endorse WSUS Offline or WUMT. They’re both excellent products, but I don’t feel confident enough in them as yet to give an unabashed thumbs up.
Please do post in the Tools forum and let’s see if there’s some traction. Thanks for persisting!
3 users thanked author for this post.
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There is a thread about that over on the Reg, and as a result of the curiosity that aroused, I read on the Lenovo forum a bit too. Not sure if there is a permanent fix for this… what it appears to be is that somehow the UEFI gets locked into a read-only mode somehow.
This time it was Canonical behind it, but it could just have easily been Microsoft, as you note. If this issue affected a broad variety of PCs, you could accuse them of inadequate testing, but when it’s just a tiny slice of the entire PC market with the issue, it’s not hard to see how it could have been overlooked. Unless someone testing the release happened to have the affected model of laptop, they would not have had it happen, and there are thousands of laptop models out there.
The idea that a bad release of Ubuntu can cause lasting harm that can’t be fixed by reimaging the hard drive is sobering, though. A backup isn’t going to protect you from this one, and until now, that has always been the go-to defense against bad OS releases.
There should be a means for write-protecting the firmware via hardware (like a jumper or DIP switch) on anything that has flashable firmware, and PCs certainly should have a fail-safe of some sort, like the motherboards and PCs that have a dual-BIOS setup.
It remains to be seen what the root cause of this is, and whether PCs other than Lenovos could be at risk with a slightly different glitch in the aforementioned Intel driver. Most implementations of UEFI do not comply with the standards, and some are worse than others.
Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)1 user thanked author for this post.
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As a general rule, I would stay with Long Term Support versions of Ubuntu (the LTS ones), to be safe, if you’re going to be using Ubuntu. The short term releases are “bleeding edge”, and are best for those users living on the edge, or are willing to be beta testers.
I use Linux Mint myself, and those releases are currently based on Ubuntu 16.04 (LTS), with the older safe kernels installed. Newer versions of Mint are now based on LTS versions of Ubuntu, with new software updates (Firefox, Flash, etc) being “backported” in fairly quickly.
Fedora is also leading edge, so that’s a bit risky, but most of the distros are somewhat conservative, so you shouldn’t have that much of an issue, though it’s worth checking out if you are looking in that direction.
1 user thanked author for this post.
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Seems, the BIOS corruption in affected computers can be fixed by installing the latest Linux kernel 4.14.9 …
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1734147?comments=all
(comment #284 & #294)
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There are so many things to have grievances about this year.
I just feel like wishing you all a better year next year, trying to vote with your wallet for things that you feel are good to the world and influence people around you to do the same.
Are we just a bunch of old people not understanding the new world here? Maybe, but I hope that the culture of excellence and being proud of doing something that matter, with substance and quality, will survive.
And most of all, spread love, as life is going on so fast and love seems to be the best answer to everything. It is contagious and will survive us.
Thanks to you all.
Windows 10 has no bugs, they are features. I mean it. What do you call an annoyance that can only be disabled by renaming a system folder (like Cortana)? A feature.
Like the ad services that beta after beta put the main HDD at 100% usage. Go to /r/techsupport or /r/windows10 if you don’t believe me.
And all the fancy telemetry that get the user locked out even if has admin privileges because they are armored as Trusted Installer or System.
This is not an operating system, it’s ad-ridden PayForAds beta service. And it’s a service because that’s what Microsoft has wanted to do from XP onward.
1 user thanked author for this post.
Linux is the goal.
I use my home PC primarily for gaming and web browsing. For the former, I need a powerful rig with a stable OS that is Windows (7, etc) compatible. I will use Windows 7 until the last dying breath, since at this stage, it looks unlikely any Linux platform will come to support games (esp the one I play, yes, singular) with the performance that Windows does. Yes, I can run Windows in a VM/Wine environment, but the graphics performance will be dog-poop by comparison.
At work, we are similarly sticking with Windows 7 until the next hardware refresh, which will likely be just before total end of support. We just refreshed our fleet of desktops with the last Dell range of CPUs supported by Windows 7, so we’re good for another 2 odd years. I think Windows will HAVE to relent on the end date, because business, especially govts., will still be running on Windows 7. We can’t afford to have Windows 10 controlled by Microsoft on a business or govt PC that just randomly installs whatever Microsoft feels should be installed. A business PC that just decides to install Candy Crush? NO! We should not be forced to pay Enterprise edition ongoing ransom to Microsoft just to stop our machines from being hobbled. Games, etc. have no business on our PCs. We need to be able to present a fixed, stable environment to our users, and we can’t do that when Microsoft keeps installing apps against our wishes AND replacing the whole OS every couple of years (with the shortened end of life of W10 editions). Simply not on!
No matter where you go, there you are.
1 user thanked author for this post.
Viewing 32 reply threads - This topic has 92 replies, 38 voices, and was last updated 7 years, 4 months ago by
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