JorgeA

What a pathetic argument that was. Doesn't the guy (I assume it's a guy) realize that the default setting for Windows Updates in 7 is to download and install them automatically? Indeed, a common complaint historically has been that Windows reboots itself all of a sudden to install updates. For those who don't know or don't care enough to keep track of what their computer is up to, there is no "X" to click on, red or any other color, by Grandma or anybody else. Now, does anybody have insight on this quote from that thread: What do you all think? Is he "on to something," or "full of it"? --JorgeA

The point is whether the cops will come to your house and handcuff the painter or if they will handcuff you because somewhere in the papers (the ones you did not read at the time you bought your home) there is written how there is mandatory repainting of your house in a colour chosen by the municipality (this year the chosen one is shocking pink ). jaclaz --JorgeA

Another Metro-inspired product by Microsoft bites the dust: Windows RT will not be able to run Universal apps after Update 3 is released How many of these Microsoft dumbed-down interfaces are now struggling or have failed completely? And yet they keep bashing their heads against the wall. --JorgeA

Agreed, although from @jaclaz's link above it sounds like Apple is in competition with Microsoft to create the most bullying, user-hostile system possible. One thing in the translation caught my eye. Discussing the Windows 10 T&C, it says: So, whatever we might do to optimize, tweak, and personalize our Windows 10 systems, Microsoft demands permission to undo in a flash with some d*mned "update." --JorgeA

Nice find, jaclaz. The money quote: Were it a few years ago, I would have replied "Microsoft" without hesitation. Maybe the commenter at the bottom has the right idea. --JorgeA

IMHO @bphlpt and @alacran got it right: the guy being quoted in the OP was trying to make his statement sound even more impressive, although to our minds he ended up just sounding silly. If you decrease something by 100%, you have nothing -- zero -- left of it. You can't decrease something by 3000% because you can't decrease it by more than what there is of it. (Note to @dencorso: my DVR is set to record The Matrix in a couple of days. I'll let you know if I see the scene that you have in mind. ) --JorgeA

LOL But really, how patronizing of Microsoft to presume that my computer "needs" any updates. If a salesman at a shoe store comes up to me and says anything like that to me ("you need new shoes"), I give him the one-finger salute and walk out. If my painter says something like that about my house, I'll say "thank you, let me think about it." But if he starts painting regardless of my wishes, I'll tell him to stop and call the cops if he doesn't. --JorgeA

Those are great! But I'm a bit dubious about the "PC Master Race" notion. If the writer had said "power users," or "people who like to tinker with their computers," then I'd be fully on board with him. And as a matter of fact, the rush to make the OS or the PC over into a closed-box "appliance" model is bound to hurt the computer industry over time, as it would slow to a trickle the influx of new computing enthusiasts, leaving that many fewer people participating in the tech community and contributing ideas. There would be no future Steve Jobs or Bill Gates working independently on the next big tech thing out of his garage. Forums such as MSFN, MDL, and so forth would eventually dwindle down to near nothing. --JorgeA

Let's follow this logically. To illustrate what I've been saying, I am going to plug in different numbers for the ones you have there: Suppose that the question was about shortening by 100% 100% = 100/100 = 1 So shortening by 100% = 1/1 of initial quantity or 1.0000x So if the initial quantity is 100 then 100/1 = 100 or 100 x 1 = 100 This would mean, then, that "shortening something by 100%" is equivalent to leaving it unchanged. I maintain that it is not possible to decrease (or shorten) anything by 3000%. Proper use of language would be (unlike the expert quoted in the OP) to say that the figure was decreased by 97%, or decreased to 1/30th of what it had been. @Tripredacus is right IMHO. The language is getting some nonsensical pseudomathematical expressions injected into it, like the example we've been talking about. Another one that also annoys me (but has a bit more logic to it) is when people say that X is "three times less likely" than Y. Huh? It takes additional mental processing to understand that the speaker probably means that Y is three times more likely than X. Why not simply say that? Or say that X is one-third as likely as Y? --JorgeA

This will probably come as no surprise, but here goes anyway: Not Just OS Updates, App Updates Also Mandatory for Windows 10 Home Edition --JorgeA

Actually the troubles may be with the length of the name. A SSID should be 32 characters or less (and some firmware needs a null terminated string, reducing it to 31). by appending _optout_nomap you loose 13 characters and you are left with "only" 19 "meaningful" ones, besides forcefully limiting the fantasy of Wi-Fi naming artists: http://www.buzzfeed.com/jessicaprobus/no-more-free-wifi jaclaz I like the top listing in #5. --JorgeA

The problems with "up"grading to Win10 keep rolling in: Upgrades from Windows 7 to Windows 10 Cause Office Document Errors Note the completely useless error popup: If I experienced this issue, I think I might be angrier at the worthless error message than at the problem itself. The complete lack of information about what's going on strikes me as patronizing and insulting. Not even an error code for the customer to look up, let alone a description of what the issue could be. --JorgeA

Cybersecurity specialist Brian Krebs weighs in on that new Wi-Fi Sense feature in Windows 10: Windows 10 Shares Your Wi-Fi With Contacts And then he describes a method Microsoft suggests to prevent all of this from happening automatically: Trouble is, Google has been actively detecting private Wi-Fi networks and adding them to its index. That, too, can be stopped by tacking "_nomap" at the end of the network name, but there is a question as to whether you can do "_optout" AND "_nomap" at the same time -- it may not be possible to thwart the designs of BOTH sets of privacy raiders. A lot of perceptive comments down at the bottom. Here's one: --JorgeA

Here's something apropos that I saw in issue 015 of Linux Voice, written by Nick Veitch (former editor of Linux Format magazine): --JorgeA

Woody polishes his crystal ball and issues a prediction for The first 6 changes Microsoft will make to Windows 10 Speaking of forced updates, here's No. 3: Number 5 is that MSFT will make it easier to switch search engines on the new Edge browser: Well, I can think of at least one plausible reason for making it so hard: Microsoft wants people to use and stay on Bing. In combination with the Microsoft Account that they're also pushing for vigorously, it enables them to track users and to "learn" about them. It doesn't require a tinfoil hat to surmise this. One other assessment by Woody that will be interesting to see whether it pans out: --JorgeA

Woody Leonhard describes his troubles with forced Windows Updates: On the road to Windows 10: Problems with forced updates and KB 3073930 Woody goes on to discuss the "troubleshooter" that Microsoft has provided which we are using in lieu of a real capability to pick and choose which updates we will allow, and then reports his experiences with it. The first use wasn't exactly a confidence builder --JorgeA

Hmmm... thinking about it, this is probably what the guy quoted in the linked article had in mind when talking about decreasing the time needed to get a seniors' card by 3000%. Thanks for clarifying! Consider this, though: if 3000% = 30, then 200% = 2. But since we're talking about increases and decreases, we face a relatively minor issue and a relatively major issue. The relatively minor issue is that a 200% increase does not equate to a doubling (2x) of the starting amount. For example, if we increase the price of coffee beans by 100%, it goes from (say) $10/pound to $20/pound, since 100% of $10 is $10 and $10 + $10 = $20. By the same token, if we increase the price by 200%, it goes from $10/pound to $30/pound ($10 starting + [$10 + $10]), or triple (3x) the original price. So a "two hundred percent" increase actually means "three times" the original amount. Therefore a 3000% increase leaves you with 31 times the starting figure. It's not 30x, but 31x. But this is a relative quibble compared to the following: If a 3000% decrease is taken to mean 1/30, then by extension a 200% decrease would mean 1/2 -- that is, half of the original amount, or 50%. Hence, by this logic, a 200% decrease would amount to the same thing as a 50% decrease. That's why I'd say it's both logically and linguistically more correct (more accurate, less confusing) to say that a new technique yielded a "97% decrease" (OK, 96.66666...%) in the amount of time needed to accomplish a task, than to say that it led to a "3000% decrease" in the amount of time needed. Or say simply that it took 1/30th as much time as it used to before the change. --JorgeA

That's a fabulous discussion of this "compound," thiotimoline, in Wikipedia! But that will be possible only if the parents are using Windows 10 or its successors, certainly not on Windows 7. --JorgeA

Huh, I'd never hear of this concept of underflow. Sure wouldn't mind getting 7 or 8 bananas out of a bunch of 6... Using the same underflow concept, the foxes and wolves who mounted such a successful attack on my farm would have left me, what, 29,000 chickens in the red. I'd be forced to go on a massive chicken-buying binge just to get back to where I was before. I've been meaning to watch those movies all over again, especially the first one. This gives me a good excuse to actually do it. --JorgeA

The following sentence caught my eye... ...and got me wondering. If you lower something by, say, 50 percent, you're cutting the amount of it in half. If you lower it by 99 percent, you're leaving one percent in place. And if you cut it by 100 percent, there is nothing left. Right? So, how is it mathematically possible to decrease something by 3,000 percent? Say you had 1,000 chickens in your farm last night, but foxes and wolves banded together to break into the henhouse; after several terrifying hours, by the time you woke up they had cut your chicken head count by "3,000 percent." How many chickens do you have left now at the end of the rampage? --JorgeA

Here's a positive development: You don't need to use a Microsoft Account to download apps from Window 10's Store --JorgeA

Microsoft: Windows 10 collects users' private information, but not for ads ...nahh, only to pass it on to the NSA, investigators, and to build a dossier profile on you. In any case I am dubious about the "not for ads" part. I'd have to wade back into that 17,000-word agreement again, but I'm pretty sure it says something in there about users of the Microsoft Account being followed around the Web by the use of cookies and beacons for the (supposed) purpose of delivering personalized ads. --JorgeA

And from @loblo: That KB article was a little confusing. It claims that it's for PCs that already participate in the "Customer Experience Improvement Program," but it also says that the new update "collects diagnostics about functional issues". I thought that was precisely what the CEIP was for already? So what exactly is new here? In any case, I'm not taking any chances: I'm not installing this update! --JorgeA

Picking up where we left off, I'm quoting here from @NoelC: Holy mother of Postulate a couple of ridiculous "givens" like the above, then work into an expose of how Windows is just going to be the world's most successful adware. The givens MUST be true, then, eh? This is unhealthy for the people of the world. -Noel That IS pretty sad. Regarding the description of Win10 as "beautiful," I can't fathom why anybody would think that flat buttons and gray/white blandness all over the UI is somehow beautiful. There's no accounting for taste, but it makes me wonder what sort of plain-vanilla, generic existence they prefer to lead. But by far the worst part of it is that they seem to be OK with foisting that blandness on every Windows user out there. Now that is a significant break from what Windows was like historically. --JorgeA

--JorgeA