Day: February 10, 2009

Posted on

So, Finally a Windows 7 Update with Content

…from twc use, though not much content yet.

Just installed Win7 Beta and… first impressions:

Someone at Microsoft has at least a budding sense of humor. Win7 Beta-Default deskop background is a Beta swimming in a blue field. Cute. *sigh* (I don’t do “cute” well… )

desktop

Installed quickly for a Windows OS. Under 30 mins to a working desktop. Not all that bad. Reboots for parts of the installation process were all under one minute. Seems more responsive than Vista systems I’ve been on, but that’s purely subjective.

Internet Exploder 8 seems to suck a little less than previous iterations of Internet Exploder.

I dislike the default system sounds, but that’s purely idiosyncratic.

The eye candy is nice. Not necessary but nice. Comparable to my default Ubuntu setup.

Recognized all my hardware, set my display to its native resolution.

Small printing problem from within a Control Panel applet, but printing from other apps seems to work fine. Printing over the network’s another story. Seems I need to install a patch to the WinXP computers, as is neccesary for many with mixed Vista/XP networks. Funny, that. Network printing in Linux has been relatively simple, apart from the problems after the upgrade from Ubuntu 8.04 to 8.10 that eventually sorted themselves out (Right: long story; see previous posts on that :-)).

So far, this is just about the best beta (shrinkwrapped or not *heh*) I’ve seen from Microsoft, of any kind.

More later.

Update: OK, I have a bit of time for one of my gripes, now. Granular control of security settings is a pain. UAC, for example, allows users to set the security settings to only four simplified, general settings (unbleieveably irritating, two degrees of sorta irritating and off). No granular control. For that, one has to dig around in Win 7’s innards–which I’m perfectly satisfied to do, but which Aunt Tilly and Bubba Billy Bob Joe Jim can’t (shouldn’t) and probably don’t know anyone technically adept enough to do for them. So, the dumbed down training wheels approach is fine for Aunt Tilly and Bubba Billy Bob Joe Jim (by which I mean Academia Nut Fruitcakes (and [darned near] all Prisons for Kids administrators, recent liberal arts graduates, etc.), Big Box-High Dollar “Tech Support” Personnel, as well as the average, innumerate, illiterate computer user). But it’s decidedly NOT OK with me that the GUI doesn’t have an “advanced” tab that allows advanced, granular settings. It’s as though Me$$y$oft is trying to be Apple. *heh*

However, that said, there’s a neat lil app from the WinVistaClub, The Ultimate Windows Tweaker, that very nearly satisfies my desire for a decent GUI to handle digging into some innards (without doing Registry edits, etc.). It appears to work the same for Win7 as it does for Vista, so it’s making my life a tad easier and more comfortable. 😉

Then there are the silly things like no “browse to” button for navigating to files for changing the desktop background. No. Have to select from a “theme” or use Explorer to go to a folder with appropriate graphics files, right click on one and then select “Set as Desktop Background”. *feh* Silly time waster.

Little things, but it’s little things like this that either irk or please me. ‘s’way I am.

BTW, I’d forgotten, after just eight months or so of daily Ubuntu use, just how much I hate Windows’ DRM crap. Watch a TV show or movie online at a site that a.) does “own the rights” and b.) has made it available for free (with ads or whatever) for streaming and… Windows intrudes and says I don’t have the rights to watch it? *feh* yes, *feh* I say! Pain in the tuches doesn’t begin to describe it!

Posted on

Innumeracy

With insincere apologies to Mark Twain, a society that doesn’t count is no better than one that can’t. Consider the wisdom of the internet:

Over 3 in 2 people in the world are completely innumerate.

Eh? Come again? *heh*

Or better yet, consider this:

I don’t even know where to begin… *sigh*

One cent=$0.01

$0.01X0.002=$0.00002

$0.00002X35893 (the kb use cited in the video above)=$0.71786

It’s very, very, very simple arithmetic. “Do-it-in-your-head” arithmetic. Doesn’t even qualify as “math,” IMO.

Why did the two Verizon reps just not get it? Well, not only is adult literacy on the decline in these (dis)United States, but a growing number of folks just can’t count… largely because they’ve not been compelled by education and experience to do so. Heck, even this otherwise thoughtful article at Money Instructor.com uses a model that is part of the problem, a big part.

There is nothing wrong with using a calculator, of course. Calculators are useful in that they save time on arithmetical computations. But in a modern society where most citizens have graduated from an advanced system of formal education, one would expect that educated people would have an understanding of what the calculator is doing. To be sure, the four basic operations are well understood by people who consider themselves educated, but recent studies show that a majority begin to have difficulty when faced with such concepts as square roots, simple algebraic terms, and grade school geometry.

Did you catch that? “To be sure, the four basic operations are well understood by people who consider themselves educated… ”

It doesn’t matter one bit whether people “consider themselves educated” or not. Those who cannot tell the difference between $0.002 and $0.00002 can’t perform “the four basic operations” and indeed do NOT understand them. They are innumerate. And their numbers are legion. And it is they who combine their illiteracy (“The man who doesn’t read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.”–Twain) with their innumeracy and thus allow the Mass Media Podpeople Hivemind, politicians, illiterate and innumerate Academia Nut Fruitcakes, so-called educators and all their ilk to fill their minds with illiterate, innumerate, toxic sludge.

When a people cannot measure the impacts of public policies in clear and meaningful ways, then that people can fall prey to all kinds of flim-flammery. And such is the American public becoming.

Millions of Americans engage the services of income tax accountants every year because they are unable to perform the simple calculations themselves. Many others have difficulty interpreting statistical information, percentages, or any kind of information expressed in terms of graphs and charts. When it comes to calculating areas, capacity, or weights and measures, the average North American is not sure where to begin. For a modern society, this should be an intolerable situation, yet it seems that for most people it is quite normal and acceptable.

In short, millions of Americans are enstupiated sheeple, ripe for shearing. Worse, these same people cannot really blame the failures of “public education” (AKA “prisons for kids”), because almost anyone who wants to, who puts in a little effort, can become literate and numerate. Well more than half the population of enstupiated American sheeple are self-made enstupiated American sheeple.

In a representative republic, such is a recipe for disaster. In an ever more democratic (rule by mob) representative republic, we are beginning to reap many of the ills feared by the Founders, largely because a lazy, illiterate, innumerate electorate enables the obscene autoeriticism of politicians who gain almost orgasmic pleasure from misusing tax monies as yet uncollected from future generations.

I met a woman in her 60s the other day who declaimed that “We older people will lose all our benefits if the Republicans gain power.” *huh*?!? What benefits? Social Security has long been bankrupt, stealing from younger generations to buy older folks’ votes. Medicare and other “benefits” are likewise nothing but Ponzi schemes writ large. “Benefits” that steal from my children and grandchildren (and yours) to pay me are beyond obscene; they are simply wrong. Dhimmicraps/Repugnican’ts: makes not one bit of difference. The Ponzi scheme remains. And people who can’t or won’t do the math to see behind the smokescreen are the problem–or at least a large part of it–that keeps the government’s shameful Ponzi schemes going. For now. But someday, numbers will force an accounting, and when that happens, katie bar the door.

“There are three kinds of people in the world: those who count and those who don’t.”

*heh* Which are you?

Trackposted to The Pink Flamingo, Rosemary’s Thoughts, Political Byline, Wingless – Belgium Says Israel Uses Child Soldiers, Refuses to Sell Weapons, Democrat=Socialist, and DragonLady’s World, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.