The Official Status Thread
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@Gąska said in The Official Status Thread:
@pie_flavor said in The Official Status Thread:
@Tsaukpaetra The installer has an 'I don't have a license key' option. Microsoft made the installer. Ergo, Microsoft says you can.
And what happens if you use that option? Does it redirect you to Windows store or something?
Booted as a clean install, no. It just puts you into warning mode immediately (well, three day grace period) and watermarks the desktop soon after, along with other things.
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@Tsaukpaetra Yeah. Windows just hopes to annoy you to death by displaying the "Activate Windows Nao!" text constantly, as well as disabling most OS settings meaning you can't for example set your own desktop image or accent color.
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@Atazhaia said in The Official Status Thread:
Windows just hopes to annoy you to death
It used to be worse, in 7 it basically stonewalled you upon login if memory serves...
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@Atazhaia said in The Official Status Thread:
@Tsaukpaetra Yeah. Windows just hopes to annoy you to death by displaying the "Activate Windows Nao!" text constantly, as well as disabling most OS settings meaning you can't for example set your own desktop image or accent color.
At least they don't block settings that actually mean something. I couldn't care less about wallpaper to be honest.
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Also, Windows license terms are pretty clear on this:
5. Authorized Software and Activation. You are authorized to use this software only if you are properly licensed and the software has been properly activated with a genuine product key or by other authorized method.
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@Benjamin-Hall said in The Official Status Thread:
@Gąska said in The Official Status Thread:
Status: I still can't believe the Overwhelmingly Large Telescope was a real project. Did they really think this name would get them funding from serious astronomical organizations?
From the serious astronomers I know (as well as the physicists I know), I see no reason why not. Our sense of humor is...odd at best.
Two NMR methods are labelled with the acronyms INEPT and ADEQUATE.
Any questions?
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Status: I was trying to figure out why the speakers in my new monitor aren't working. Eventually I checked my purchase page and realized I bought the no-speakers model. Oh well.
(It's confusing because they actually have a headphone output, with its own DAC and therefore a volume slider)
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@Rhywden said in The Official Status Thread:
@Benjamin-Hall said in The Official Status Thread:
@Gąska said in The Official Status Thread:
Status: I still can't believe the Overwhelmingly Large Telescope was a real project. Did they really think this name would get them funding from serious astronomical organizations?
From the serious astronomers I know (as well as the physicists I know), I see no reason why not. Our sense of humor is...odd at best.
Two NMR methods are labelled with the acronyms INEPT and ADEQUATE.
Any questions?
Biology is rife with this sort of thing, especially in gene names:
SONIC HEDGEHOG - Fruit flies have spikes all over if mutated
CHEAP DATE - Fruit flies get drunk easily if mutated
SPOCK - Fish get spock ears if mutated
KLUMPFUSS - Fruit flies get mis-formed feet if mutatedIt just goes on and on and on...
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@Benjamin-Hall The best way to make a good painting is to make 200 bad ones first, and if you destroy the bad ones afterward, no one will know you weren't good all along.
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Status: It's report day! And the planning tool is working well I see and giving me a lot more reports than the six I am supposed to do. Wonderful. Best go talk to the administrator...
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@pie_flavor said in The Official Status Thread:
As for Windows I've never experienced these problems, ever.
We all know you live in a parallel universe where Windows is perfect and Windows Update is the best software ever conceived.
Unfortunately, the rest of us must live in reality
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@TimeBandit said in The Official Status Thread:
@pie_flavor said in The Official Status Thread:
As for Windows I've never experienced these problems, ever.
We all know you live in a parallel universe where Windows is perfect and Windows Update is the best software ever conceived.
Unfortunately, the rest of us must live in reality
Windows Update does what it's designed to do. If you restart frequently and update on time, it's designed to be unobtrusive. If you never update and never restart, it's designed to force you to update.
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@dkf said in The Official Status Thread:
@pie_flavor said in The Official Status Thread:
Ah, the 'it was shit ten years ago' argument.
Not our fault that's true!
And nor is it the fault of the current product.
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@Gąska said in The Official Status Thread:
Also, Windows license terms are pretty clear on this:
5. Authorized Software and Activation. You are authorized to use this software only if you are properly licensed and the software has been properly activated with a genuine product key or by other authorized method.
I'm not sure they can do that.
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@pie_flavor why not?
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@Gąska Because the software's on your computer. Can they really dictate what you do with software on your computer?
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@pie_flavor yes they can. They can even dictate what you do with other software that they have no rights to! (I'm referring to cracks of course. They're 100% illegal to use and there are many court rulings that support that.)
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I find it interesting @Tsaukpaetra liked my posts and not @pie_flavor's. I have two possible explanations, both as likely.
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@pie_flavor
How do you know? I thought back when Windows Update was helplessly hammering one of the CPU logical cores (because of too many updates at once) you could run under the kitchen table without bending your knees?
Not to discriminate, of course, if you still can.But seriously, this isn't even about W10 grievances or its persistent pestering, or its blatant disregard of anything but itself. Windows Update (then Automatic Updates and update something tool whatever before then) has been utter shyte since its very conception.
- It takes a truly disproportionate amount of time to update old installations, from checking to downloading. This, strangely, is the case even with a local, dedicated WSUS on a proper Gigabit link.
- It can't be cancelled (nor even paused for that matter), which, in turn, doesn't allow it to appropriately react to changes of the network connection state (or anything really). Forced interruptions have been known to corrupt its database.
- It had that dumb bug I described above for ages, recurring several times for XP, Vista and W7, with any number of solutions and KBs related to Windows Update Agent that didn't work.
It would appear as if checking for updates, and wuauclt.exe or svchost.exe hosting the update service would spin.
So slipstreaming and/or local WSUS has been (and might very well still be) the only sane way to have them working. Except configuring a Windows Server requires rain dance with tambourines in and of itself. Never mind the costs.
I have to admit that W10 actually seems somewhat quicker about it. But perhaps that's an illusion, because there's no angry customers pestering me anymore, and the hardware has gotten quite better, too, starting with SSDs taking place of goddamn disgrace of 5400 rpm Toshibas that somehow managed to be twice more shyte than any other 5400 rpm shyte.
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@Applied-Mediocrity I have never experienced absolutely any of that. And I owned possibly the shittiest Vista laptop in existence, made before companies realized that people would buy products more if effort was put into them. The network card would occasionally die halfway, causing the connection to become dogshit, or die completely, and either I'd have to turn wifi off and on again or I'd have to turn the computer off and on again. The updates had never been corrupted and never ate up the CPU.
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status: can I really save 15 percent or more by switching to GEICO?
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@pie_flavor I had it happen on my last work machine with Win7. It wasn't that the update database was corrupted, it was a quirk of the way the Windows Update agent was programmed in that the more updates it had downloaded that it had to compare against the server to see what it was missing, the time required to do so rose on some sort of ridiculous scale (not sure if it was exponential or not).
I still have the bookmark for this SuperUser discussion thread I located when I found out how to stop WUAUSERV when it was killing my ability to use my machine after booting before MS made a patch that fixed the behavior ~1-1.5 years ago.
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@Tsaukpaetra said in The Official Status Thread:
status: can I really save 15 percent or more by switching to GEICO?
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@topspin said in The Official Status Thread:
That's a pretty long time to fix that issue.
Oh for sure. My point was just that it's not an issue on a recent version of Windows.
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@Benjamin-Hall said in The Official Status Thread:
Status: I painted.
"Two moons rise over the Sea of Grass"
Acrylic on paper.
Sub-title: I enjoy painting, butneed lots of work to be decent at itsuck at it.The Windows XP default wallpaper?
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@loopback0 said in The Official Status Thread:
@Benjamin-Hall said in The Official Status Thread:
Status: I painted.
"Two moons rise over the Sea of Grass"
Acrylic on paper.
Sub-title: I enjoy painting, butneed lots of work to be decent at itsuck at it.The Windows XP default wallpaper?
Tracer!
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@loopback0 said in The Official Status Thread:
@topspin said in The Official Status Thread:
That's a pretty long time to fix that issue.
Oh for sure. My point was just that it's not an issue on a recent version of Windows.
I tend to believe you (because you're not one of those two people who've never had an issue and thus claim there are no issues).
But I seem to vaguely remember that they had promised it's been fixed at least once, if not twice, before I had that happen again on Win7. And my XP and Vista computers both became completely unusable by this bug unless I disabled the windows update service completely and switched to WSUS. The "let it run to finish once" advise didn't work because it wouldn't finish in a day or two, and the "reset update database" trick did nothing at all. So I'm kind of wary about it.
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@antiquarian said in The Official Status Thread:
@Benjamin-Hall The best way to make a good painting is to make 200 bad ones first, and if you destroy the bad ones afterward, no one will know you weren't good all along.
If you intend to become world-renowned good, keep the bad ones for later. They'll sell.
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@pie_flavor said in The Official Status Thread:
companies realized that people would buy products more if effort was put into them
Interesting. All this Windows Update fuss put aside, when is that scheduled to happen exactly?
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@topspin said in The Official Status Thread:
@antiquarian said in The Official Status Thread:
@Benjamin-Hall The best way to make a good painting is to make 200 bad ones first, and if you destroy the bad ones afterward, no one will know you weren't good all along.
If you intend to become world-renowned good, keep the bad ones for later. They'll sell.
I doubt there's any chance of that.
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@HardwareGeek said in The Official Status Thread:
@loopback0 said in The Official Status Thread:
iTunes ... something completely unnecessary
I agree.
Hey, no argument from me there.
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@Benjamin-Hall said in The Official Status Thread:
I doubt there's any chance of that.
Picasso did it
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@TimeBandit said in The Official Status Thread:
@Benjamin-Hall said in The Official Status Thread:
I doubt there's any chance of that.
Picasso did it
Am curious on what basis Reuters asserts copyright.
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@japonicus said in The Official Status Thread:
Am curious on what basis Reuters asserts copyright.
I took the image from one of their pages
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Status: The actual iOS update went smoothly, no problems.
The bit of redesign in both macOS and iOS is actually pleasant, some of the default fonts are larger and importantly bolder. No more 48pt fonts on the lock screen that are 1px wide. Did they finally fire Jony Ives?Unfortunately, some animations are back, even though I've enabled the "accessibility" setting to reduce motion.
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@topspin I wasn't sure if some fonts had changed or if I was imagining it.
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@japonicus
General Pie-flavor Licence
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Status: Everything is turning yellow and orange right on schedule. The clouds are finally here to stay. Life is good.
And to top it all off:
- Today is the launch for Maple Story 2 for Founders (I know one other, so i may start)
- Tomorrow is Mega Man 11
- The 10th is the official Maple Story 2 launch
- The 12th is The World Ends With You: Final Remix
This is just the best month.
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Update: what the heck is this? An option to put a giant arrow on the left or right side of the keyboard which, when pressed, makes itself disappear again?
I guess that’s useful, somehow?
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@topspin said in The Official Status Thread:
Update: what the heck is this? An option to put a giant arrow on the left or right side of the keyboard which, when pressed, makes itself disappear again?
I guess that’s useful, somehow?
One handed mode. Shrinks the keyboard so you can easily use it with one hand. The android version works better.
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@topspin Is it one-handed typing?
I didn't know the option existed until your post, but if I try it (in what I assume is right-handed mode) then my thumb reaches the Q nicely.
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@pie_flavor said in The Official Status Thread:
One handed mode. Shrinks the keyboard so you can easily use it with one hand. The android version works better.
Interesting, didn't think of that. I'm already using the keyboard with one hand without that. Although I do from time to time use the double tap on the home button to pull down the upper half of the screen to the bottom, handy sometimes.
Still, this seems seriously klunky if it disappears again once you inadvertently hit the button.
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@topspin said in The Official Status Thread:
Still, this seems seriously klunky if it disappears again once you inadvertently hit the button.
Hard to hit it if it's out of reach of one hand.
Like I said, Android's is better. On Android it just switches the side, there's a separate maximize button.
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@topspin My 6S has it, but my work SE which is small enough that my thumb reaches across the width of the screen doesn't.
It'd be difficult to accidentally hit the button as it's out of reach (to me, at least).Obvious jokes not withstanding, I'm not sure why one-handed typing is useful unless you've only got one hand, and then I assume there are other solutions already.
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@loopback0 said in The Official Status Thread:
@topspin My 6S has it, but my work SE which is small enough that my thumb reaches across the width of the screen doesn't.
It'd be difficult to accidentally hit the button as it's out of reach (to me, at least).Obvious jokes not withstanding, I'm not sure why one-handed typing is useful unless you've only got one hand, and then I assume there are other solutions already.
I'm using a 6S and I'm always typing with one hand.
So yeah, I see the usefulness now but I think it'd be better without the shortcut in the language switcher (I do that a lot and if I were to use this feature I'd always use it) and without the button resetting it. Matter of taste, I guess.
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@topspin said in The Official Status Thread:
I'm using a 6S and I'm always typing with one hand.
I can but it's more of a stretch so I can see how this mode might be useful.
I'm never in a situation where I'm typing on my phone and both hands aren't available though so won't be using it either way.
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Status: The BCFP specifies some interesting things about boolean fields. To accommodate, the type we use for their bools has 4 states.
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Overheard phone conversation in the office —
What he said: "... brushed nickel"
What I heard: "... brushed nipple"