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> I agree. Windows, as far as I can see it, is the worst of both worlds. You have to do a lot of work (make a lot of decisions) to get a half-decent experience
by cletus 15y ago
> I agree. Windows, as far as I can see it, is the worst of both worlds. You have to do a lot of work (make a lot of decisions) to get a half-decent experience but if you want to control it at a low level, the way you can with Linux, you can't.
I have a slightly different take on this. While I agree that Windows is an example of how trying to be all things to all men leads to a confusing mess, at least in Windows 7 it's still a fairly decent default experience. It probably does punish the true tinkerer for all its complex layers of the registry, local and group policies, magic folders (eg startup), etc.
But Linux on the desktop just goes to prove time and again just how bad a user experience it is to give true "freedom". I don't want to figure out what the best way of playing video or audio files is and choosing between N (where N is typically a fairly large number) options.
This is something that Canonical (for one) is trying to address but at this stage it almost requires a complete rethink of the Linux desktop (which may be what Wayland and others hope to achieve).
> I remember that scene (in Mad Men) quite well and I think it's insightful. It reminds me of On Killing, an excellent book on the psychological effects of war.
I could probably rhapsodize about the insights of Mad Men all day.
That's certainly an interesting take on war. I think it's more than that though. In modern warfare we (as a society) have become incredibly good at training soldiers to do their job reflexively. In a combat situation the training kicks in and the modern soldier will, generally speaking, shoot an enemy (as one example) almost completely instinctively.
It's only after that happens when the soldier has time to process what they've done that they run into trouble. I saw a documentary on this and it was talking about how there's a real disconnect between the how of a soldier's actions and the why with the increasingly effective training.
- michaelochurch 15y agoI could probably rhapsodize about the insights of Mad Men all day. Something I find interesting is that Mad Men and Breaking Bad are superficially different shows, but actually extremely similar. Ignore the radically different backdrops and they're both about out-of-control egos and "men at work" drama. The difference is that one setting involves alcoholism and advertising and people who fall out just get fired, while the other involves methamphetamine and murder and failing (for Walter) means death. Mad Men is erotic, Breaking Bad is thanatoptic; but the shows are two different takes on the same society. I don't know if this correspondence is intentional on the part of AMC's directors, but Mad Men and Breaking Bad are, to me, clear A-and-Z bookends of the American Era. It's only after that happens when the soldier has time to process what they've done that they run into trouble. I saw a documentary on this and it was talking about how there's a real disconnect between the how of a soldier's actions and the why with the increasingly effective training. Soldiers and policemen have a terrible job. For psychopaths (2%) killing another person is easy. For everyone else, it's extremely difficult (even in self-defense) and something people generally avoid. Which means that an untrained normal person drawing against a psychopath is likely to be shot dead. This may not be new knowledge, but 85% of guns issued in the American Civil War were never fired.
- jholman 15y ago> But Linux on the desktop just goes to prove time and again just how bad a user experience it is to give true "freedom". I don't want to figure out what the best way of playing video or audio files is and choosing between N (where N is typically a fairly large number) options. Actually, the flip side of this is one of my favorite things about Linux on the desktop. If I'm looking for some new software to do some new-to-me task X, as long as they're properly packaged in the repositories, it's usually very low-cost to just give them a quick 2-minute test. Partly because no one is monetarily gaining from tricking me, I don't even have to worry about being tricked! On Windows, I have to do quite a lot of digging before I'm even willing to install a free trial, because the culture of producing free trials that are really malware is so prevalant. I love the Linux desktop because it makes the necessary choices (e.g. which low-res pixel-art image-editing software should I use?) so much less draining.