24 December 2014

I Passed Eighth-Grade Typing

...and, therefore, I despise the Macintosh user interface; and most phone interfaces; and, more to the point, Windows 8.x and the moronic Metro interface. Especially, but not only, when the Metro interface is used as a way to hide privacy- and security-invading "apps", their settings, and means of disabling them. This is particularly annoying in protecting confidentiality: It's not the Microsoft App Store's (or iTunes', or Google Play's, or anyone else's) bloody business what pictures I may (or may not) have viewed recently, or media files I may (or may not) have played, etc. It's not even their business whether I've viewed/played anything on this machine.

I work with and alter and edit words all day, and sometimes numbers in the same way. My computer is not just for small-furry-animal videos interrupted by incessant ads for "cheaper" home loans/male "potency" pills/hair-loss cures/anything else. That some people do use their computers that way is their business... but the perception that everyone's computer should arrive out of the box prepared for endless hours of grumpy cats, while hiding everything I need, is more than a bit offensive. It's entirely understandable once one accepts that (a) marketing dorks did not pass middle-school typing, as a rule, or at least got poor grades; (b) are in control of far too many businesses; and (c) are best at marketing themselves as the solution to problems (whether real or imagined).

Yes, I'm grumpy. It has taken four days of concentrated work to get this machine somewhere close to productivity-ready, after the catastrophic failure of its predecessor (not just "hard disk error," but bricking; but I make backups!). And this machine has less crapware installed on it than most.

So, if I'm grouchy, that's why. (Like anyone would notice.) And replacing both computers and my phone in three weeks (two changes unplanned) sure hasn't made for more blawg entries, has it?