Oolite Bulletins

Thanks for your thoughts on the matter.
Looks like microsoft is the point and click winner. Just not the huge stuff up Vista.
By the way;
I aint so old that I worked on they big stand up machines with huge tapes. Never even seen one except on US telly shows.
Did see a doco of a water wheel driven abicus based adding machine said to be built from 2000 year old Chinese drawings.
The first computer?
But then docos verasity, wasn't BBC

Alex wrote:

The first computer?

That honour probably belongs to the Antikythera Mechanism - a thoroughly fascinating object.

Alex wrote:

Looks like microsoft is the point and click winner. Just not the huge stuff up Vista.

The same can be said for Windows 8, as for Vista.. get Win7, or hold out for Win10.

Thanks for the link, was really fascinating.
Makes me wonder..
What else did our ancients of ancents know about that has been totaly forgotten? or destroyed, like the Alexandrian Library or worse suppressed by power hungry bodies?

Alex wrote:

Makes me wonder..
What else did our ancients of ancents know about that has been totaly forgotten? or destroyed, like the Alexandrian Library or worse suppressed by power hungry bodies?

If you want a glimpse into that particular topic, try getting your hands on a copy of Hamlet's Mill. It's a dense and somewhat convoluted read, but a fascinating work, and despite claims to the contrary, has not been debunked.

If you're having trouble getting hold of it, PM me.

Diziet Sma wrote:

Alex wrote:

Looks like microsoft is the point and click winner. Just not the huge stuff up Vista.

The same can be said for Windows 8, as for Vista.. get Win7, or hold out for Win10.

Ya. Avoid windows 8 like the plague.

Windows 8 actually has a lot of the same functionality as 7; it's just buried under layer upon layer of crap in ways that make it all but impossible to get at the good stuff. XP is pretty much dead, they've ended support and security updates etc., so unless you never use the internet it's just not safe, and Vista was a disaster from beginning to end, which means that 7 is pretty much the only game in town for Windows at present.

I'm hearing vaguely good things about 10, but it's still way too early to know if it will be OK or total bloatware. I'm not planning to upgrade from 7 any time soon.

I like Win7 (Pro 64-bit) a lot - much more than I liked XP, in fact. Thing is, there'll be no more updates/service packs for Win7, and support will cease in 2020. By then, we should know how good Win10 is - or not. <grins wryly> There is the 'free upgrade to Win10' offer coming soon, though I'm a little suspicious of that.

I think a friend mentioned he'd already had that offer - not sure if it's a voucher against a future upgrade though.

My new computer came with Windows 8.1. With one tap of the Windows key, the metro GUI goes poof and you're presented with the familiar desktop. The only complaint I had was that it came with Mcafee security software, a horrendous resource hog. Once I got rid of that everything runs beautifully. Just have to keep an eye on the task manager because closing some Windows apps doesn't always remove them from memory. It isn't that I love Microsoft... I don't. My lame excuse is I'm too old and stuck in my ways to learn a new OS. And I still love playing Oolite. Can't wait for the next deployment.

CaptSolo wrote:

Just have to keep an eye on the task manager because closing some Windows apps doesn't always remove them from memory

Don't get me started on that topic...

I think it's just that those applications believe they are so fracking important in your life that they think you mean "minimize" when you hit the fracking red cross. This button hijacking appeared when programmers figured out how to minimize apps not into the taskbar but into the "systray" (the area near the clock in the taskbar - try to right click there, they usually have a menu with a "close" item that really fracking close the damn application).

Software publishers these days dig deeper and deeper into computer abuse: hiding in the systray, hiding as a "service" for no real reason (typically so-called update services - why the hell do you have to have an update checker running 24/7?). Sometimes they make you feel like your computer is not yours any more. This is so fracking wrong. And this is why Linux is so damn right (but also a bit less easy to run - because you don't have hordes of smiling sales people ready to "help" you).

The other day I had to uninstall a game that was running PunkBuster - an anti-cheat software that grants itself the right to take screenshots and to scan your whole drive for cheating software. And of course, this thing has to run 24/7 on your machine as a "service" (services are GUI-less background applications; usually it's system software like servers or printer spoolers but these days everyone wants to be a service because why not). When said software asked why I was uninstalling, I made sure they got the message (for what it's worth anyway; thousands of others are not even aware of what is this punkbuster thing). Fortunately it was just another F2P game; but a few commercial games are using it too.

Have to agree here to a certain point. There are some good 'gamers' applications which try to identify unnecessary 'services' et al. I think the one I use is called Game on or something. It allows me to 'add' to the list of undesirables and kills them before any sessions, or running any other demanding applications.

Problem is they rarely help. Arma 2 (and prolly 3 too) had an MP anti-cheat software too (though less intrusive than punkbuster) and it was constantly hacked, until a point where I just gave up playing it (single player is present in arma, just not very fun).

Well if the manufacturer thinks it's a good idea to knobble the customer machine for the sake of some kind of in-game integrity (and assuming there is no pecuniary advantage) then I'd complain and ask for a version that didn't have it. It's like those very annoying 'FACT' anti-piracy non-skippable intros you get on DVD's. The only people to see them are legit buyers ...