The irony behind this is that Upgrade as a word becomes scary once you've already lost ownership of said devices.
We have whole industries that have to rely on Windows 7 and self-built Windows 10 images because they can't upgrade into a shitty cloud-prioritizing OS. Microsoft just completely ignored them, essentially alienating whole industry branches.
Try justifying that a Candy Crush Saga download shut down a high oven, wasting millions of EUR in energy costs, for example. And yes, that happened at a steel factory here. They switched to open source afterwards and reimplemented everything from scratch.
Every industry around chemistry, energy, production, factories, debugging... heck, even the damn hospital ... They all switch away from Microsoft because it just doesn't work without internet. Honestly I don't know how a CEO can be so asleep and out of touch at the wheel. But I guess that's just collateral damage?
> Try justifying that a Candy Crush Saga download shut down a high oven, wasting millions of EUR in energy costs, for example. And yes, that happened at a steel factory here. They switched to open source afterwards and reimplemented everything from scratch
I'm searching for this but not getting any results. Could you share a link where I can read about it?
Well, I must have remembered it incorrectly then. Because not disclosing such a technical failure like this would be at least insurance fraud ... right?
I disable auto-updates for apps on my phone. The Play Store sometimes notifies me about updates, and I ignore them. Today I hit "Update all". The app for my Sony headphones has now been changed, and has an EULA and opt-ins. Skimming through them, I think Sony now wants to upload titles and artist of music and videos that my phone plays... Oh how fucking wonderful.
My WH-1000XM4 is buggy as shit too, I had to disable power-saving (turn off if nothing is playing) because it would randomly switch off in the middle of music playback. And there's a touch gesture to enable "mute when speech is detected", which, when enabled, means when I say something in a Zoom call I can't hear anyone else anymore.. And I can't disable this single gesture, just all gestures in general.
Calvin Trillin is one of my favorite writers. The nonfiction—both serious and humorous—he has written for the New Yorker since the 1960s is particularly good.
Microsoft is perhaps the worst offender in this regard. Every update to Windows makes it worse in one way or another, and it's become quite exhausting.
I would have cut Microsoft a lot of slack if the purpose of Windows 11 was to cut down on the sheer amount of cruft and legacy jank that Windows has acquired over the years.
Alas, Windows 11 is merely rounded corners, a worse file explorer, telemetry galore, and a mandatory Microsoft account meant to hock OneDrive and Copilot on unsuspecting laypersons everywhere.
Even simple applications like calculator and photo viewer now launch with a noticeable delay, no doubt because they have to try and communicate with some Microsoft service somewhere in the cloud before letting someone use an application locally.
Correct, for now. It is getting increasingly difficult to bypass and it’s not unreasonable to think that the command line and registry tweaks that are still available today will get disabled in the near future. Microsoft has already disabled a few bypasses.
Command line and registry tweaks? I didn't bother with any of those and got an unlinked account set up the minute I first booted up Windows, as did all the non-technical folks in my family. Sure, the option is obscured very much during the first launch process, but it's still very much doable by someone without any technical chops.
I bought a gaming PC last year after having not used windows for a long time. It's crazy how much slop has been added. Felt like i had to opt out of 10000 different things to just use my computer without internet/cloud accounts
FYI, it's one of the articles that does not even start scratching the title topic surface in the first 3 paragraphs.
Regarding upgrades. It always requires QA to exist (as some rumor says that for example MS went with telemetry only in win11 instead of a proper QA approach) for users to consider upgrading at all.
When my family would go shopping, the cashier would invariably ask "Did you find everything OK?" and my father deduced that this informal polling was actually so that they could figure out when a large percentage of people answered "Yes", they would then go and reconfigure ("upgrade") the store, rearranging all the shelves and products, so that the regular customers could not, in fact, "find everything OK".
Because for any store, or any shopping mall or city, for that matter, the worst kind of shopper is the one who knows what he wants, makes a beeline for that product, picks it off the shelf and checks out, without having any opportunity to get lost and see other aisles, other shelves, and other products that he doesn't need, but may decide to purchase nevertheless.
That's the cynical take. If a product was hard to find and the customer gives up, that's a lost sale. The store might also want to know if the customer was looking for something that wasn't in stock or not carried by the store, which is also a lost sale.
The store might want to know that but not the cashier. “Did you find everything ok?” is small talk and if you try and answer it’ll be as jarring as if you gave a real answer to a stranger who asks “hows it going”
Yeah, my father was mostly jesting, because it is undoubtedly a regular schedule or management's say-so when the store gets rearranged indeed, and not by the "polling at the register".
But in terms of the stores where we shop, the clerks at the register are empowered to help us look up an existing item, or to order an item that's not on the shelves, or even to place a new item on the wishlist. So it's more than small talk for them to ask that; it's an opening and an opportunity to find out what items are in-demand that they're not carrying, or may not be obvious to find if we're just wandering around the store.
Of late, I've found that clerks in stores such as Target and Wal-Mart are equipped with tools no better than the ones we have ourselves: that is, the mobile app or the website has exact information on store layout, item availability, and what aisle we can find this stuff in. Some Targets have spiffy kiosks which I can query without needing to call up stuff on my smartphone, but if I ask a clerk, their nose will immediately go into their own mobile device, just like I would've done.
On the other hand, smaller grocery stores that sell organics are likely to feature a cadre of very personable clerks who are intimately familiar with all stock and everything on the shelves, and they can immediately escort me over to where something is on a shelf, and make recommendations based on what they carry, and tell me how their logistics work. Without even glancing at a computer or screen!
The irony behind this is that Upgrade as a word becomes scary once you've already lost ownership of said devices.
We have whole industries that have to rely on Windows 7 and self-built Windows 10 images because they can't upgrade into a shitty cloud-prioritizing OS. Microsoft just completely ignored them, essentially alienating whole industry branches.
Try justifying that a Candy Crush Saga download shut down a high oven, wasting millions of EUR in energy costs, for example. And yes, that happened at a steel factory here. They switched to open source afterwards and reimplemented everything from scratch.
Every industry around chemistry, energy, production, factories, debugging... heck, even the damn hospital ... They all switch away from Microsoft because it just doesn't work without internet. Honestly I don't know how a CEO can be so asleep and out of touch at the wheel. But I guess that's just collateral damage?
> Try justifying that a Candy Crush Saga download shut down a high oven, wasting millions of EUR in energy costs, for example. And yes, that happened at a steel factory here. They switched to open source afterwards and reimplemented everything from scratch
I'm searching for this but not getting any results. Could you share a link where I can read about it?
I can't find it neither, but "high oven" is properly translated as blast furnace.
Maybe OP is talking about this incident? [1]
Couldn't find another one mentioning unplanned shutdown or similar.
[1] https://www.ssab.com/en/news/2018/08/blast-furnace-shutdown-...
Well, I must have remembered it incorrectly then. Because not disclosing such a technical failure like this would be at least insurance fraud ... right?
I disable auto-updates for apps on my phone. The Play Store sometimes notifies me about updates, and I ignore them. Today I hit "Update all". The app for my Sony headphones has now been changed, and has an EULA and opt-ins. Skimming through them, I think Sony now wants to upload titles and artist of music and videos that my phone plays... Oh how fucking wonderful.
My WH-1000XM4 is buggy as shit too, I had to disable power-saving (turn off if nothing is playing) because it would randomly switch off in the middle of music playback. And there's a touch gesture to enable "mute when speech is detected", which, when enabled, means when I say something in a Zoom call I can't hear anyone else anymore.. And I can't disable this single gesture, just all gestures in general.
The author of this piece, Cal Trillin, wrote a lovely, poignant, funny book that was a memorial to his wife (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/95961.About_Alice) and also a really silly book about a man sitting in his car hogging parking spots as a form of obstinance/therapy. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/138993.Tepper_Isn_t_Goin...
Enjoyed them both very much!
Calvin Trillin is one of my favorite writers. The nonfiction—both serious and humorous—he has written for the New Yorker since the 1960s is particularly good.
I have a brother (iPhone user) and father (Android user) who both hate updating their phone operating systems.
I have a mother who uses a desktop to log into her MyChart and VA health systems, and I often have to help her figure out how to log in.
I'm adaptable, but I do lament when features are taken away or made worse.
It's like the phrase "user friendly" has been made into something to avoid.
Microsoft is perhaps the worst offender in this regard. Every update to Windows makes it worse in one way or another, and it's become quite exhausting.
I would have cut Microsoft a lot of slack if the purpose of Windows 11 was to cut down on the sheer amount of cruft and legacy jank that Windows has acquired over the years.
Alas, Windows 11 is merely rounded corners, a worse file explorer, telemetry galore, and a mandatory Microsoft account meant to hock OneDrive and Copilot on unsuspecting laypersons everywhere.
Even simple applications like calculator and photo viewer now launch with a noticeable delay, no doubt because they have to try and communicate with some Microsoft service somewhere in the cloud before letting someone use an application locally.
That's the BS that turned me off Windows 11. With Windows 10 ending support this October, I've moved migrated my primary PC to Linux.
All valid points but it's definitely possible to use Win 11 without a Microsoft account.
Correct, for now. It is getting increasingly difficult to bypass and it’s not unreasonable to think that the command line and registry tweaks that are still available today will get disabled in the near future. Microsoft has already disabled a few bypasses.
Bypasses will continue to be available for as long as Microsoft still wants to make money from government agencies with isolated networks.
Just means you might eventually have to pirate some special SKU of Windows that you can't buy as a normal user.
Command line and registry tweaks? I didn't bother with any of those and got an unlinked account set up the minute I first booted up Windows, as did all the non-technical folks in my family. Sure, the option is obscured very much during the first launch process, but it's still very much doable by someone without any technical chops.
How long ago was that? As far as I know it really is pretty hidden nowadays.
I bought a gaming PC last year after having not used windows for a long time. It's crazy how much slop has been added. Felt like i had to opt out of 10000 different things to just use my computer without internet/cloud accounts
FYI, it's one of the articles that does not even start scratching the title topic surface in the first 3 paragraphs.
Regarding upgrades. It always requires QA to exist (as some rumor says that for example MS went with telemetry only in win11 instead of a proper QA approach) for users to consider upgrading at all.
When my family would go shopping, the cashier would invariably ask "Did you find everything OK?" and my father deduced that this informal polling was actually so that they could figure out when a large percentage of people answered "Yes", they would then go and reconfigure ("upgrade") the store, rearranging all the shelves and products, so that the regular customers could not, in fact, "find everything OK".
Because for any store, or any shopping mall or city, for that matter, the worst kind of shopper is the one who knows what he wants, makes a beeline for that product, picks it off the shelf and checks out, without having any opportunity to get lost and see other aisles, other shelves, and other products that he doesn't need, but may decide to purchase nevertheless.
That's the cynical take. If a product was hard to find and the customer gives up, that's a lost sale. The store might also want to know if the customer was looking for something that wasn't in stock or not carried by the store, which is also a lost sale.
The store might want to know that but not the cashier. “Did you find everything ok?” is small talk and if you try and answer it’ll be as jarring as if you gave a real answer to a stranger who asks “hows it going”
Yeah, my father was mostly jesting, because it is undoubtedly a regular schedule or management's say-so when the store gets rearranged indeed, and not by the "polling at the register".
But in terms of the stores where we shop, the clerks at the register are empowered to help us look up an existing item, or to order an item that's not on the shelves, or even to place a new item on the wishlist. So it's more than small talk for them to ask that; it's an opening and an opportunity to find out what items are in-demand that they're not carrying, or may not be obvious to find if we're just wandering around the store.
Of late, I've found that clerks in stores such as Target and Wal-Mart are equipped with tools no better than the ones we have ourselves: that is, the mobile app or the website has exact information on store layout, item availability, and what aisle we can find this stuff in. Some Targets have spiffy kiosks which I can query without needing to call up stuff on my smartphone, but if I ask a clerk, their nose will immediately go into their own mobile device, just like I would've done.
On the other hand, smaller grocery stores that sell organics are likely to feature a cadre of very personable clerks who are intimately familiar with all stock and everything on the shelves, and they can immediately escort me over to where something is on a shelf, and make recommendations based on what they carry, and tell me how their logistics work. Without even glancing at a computer or screen!
At least when I worked in retail, we asked that just to be polite or make sure they actually found everything. Never had to report yes/no
I can't be bothered to search stores, so I usually just as ask an employee stocking shelves or at the register.
Can't imagine that's cheaper than just making stuff easy to find.