Windows 8 - Deeper Impressions

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

Bing gets in on the foolery, mocks Google ( NeoWin 2013-04-01)

April Fools by Fools. So on April 1st, they set up Bing so that if you type in "Google" into the search field, the Bing page changes into a Google-like display, the Bing logo looks like Google's, and the page has little boxes containing digs at their competition. So I took a look at all the boxes, and sure enough their criticism is much more sensibly applied right back at Microsoft instead. It's bad enough that on a normal day Bing is practically a visual clone of Google anyway, but on this day while trying to poke fun at Google, they may as well be talking about Windows 8 Metro. Here is a self-contained infographic that explains all ...

( Source: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 )

Information density is not really a feature of Metro. I mean, "Hypocrisy" doesn't quite cover it, does it?

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

ROFLCOPTER:

>...but now she loves it and even defends it when her friends and/or family talk bad about the metro aspect of it lol.

the fact that this even comes up in conversations with friends and/or family means that Microsoft did it's job right. I have used windows since wayyyyy back when, and never have I had conversations with friends and family members about any other version other then 'yeah, check out the new OS'. Now, I have older family members asking specifics, what is really different, what about this boxes on the screen, etc.

Win, imo.

Yep, we don't call them MicroZombies and MetroTards for nothing. Speaking of Zombies, this stuff just writes itself. I find it hysterical that Microsoft chose to latch onto the Walking Dead TV show. Beginning and end of the campaign ...

Windows 8 used by zombie in Walking Dead TV ad ( NeoWin 2012-10-15 )

The Walking Dead Windows 8 TV ad storyline to finally conclude Sunday ( NeoWin 2013-03-28 )

Life imitating Art imitating Life imitating Art ...

Source: Microsoft Windows 8 commercials, NOT the TV show!

[Formfiller]

By the way, Windows 8's Amazon page must be the shilliest on Amazon by far. A flood of three-sentence, five-star first time reviewers appears every time, when the right bar ("Most Recent Customer Reviews") is filled with negative reviews. That technique is known as burying.

Interesting, I hadn't heard that term.

And the observation about those three-sentence "reviews" goes to what you were saying that I commented on in the post just above this one, about the standard of thinking that all-too-often goes into Win8 fandom.

--JorgeA

"Burying" is a standard tactic. Watch the W8 Amazon page and you will notice that pattern. It seems to be very popular by marketers ("shills").

Here's an interesting text showing some techniques in that vein:

http://pastebin.com/irj4Fyd5

It claims to be a top secret governmental document or something (conspiracies and stuff). I don't buy that. But it illustrates many used methods to control forums, review pages etc that I've noticed myself. I guess it was written by some internet-marketer with humor and background knowledge.

Excerpts:

Technique #1 - 'FORUM SLIDING'

If a very sensitive posting of a critical nature has been posted on a forum - it can be quickly removed from public view by 'forum sliding.' In this technique a number of unrelated posts are quietly prepositioned on the forum and allowed to 'age.' Each of these misdirectional forum postings can then be called upon at will to trigger a 'forum slide.' The second requirement is that several fake accounts exist, which can be called upon, to ensure that this technique is not exposed to the public. To trigger a 'forum slide' and 'flush' the critical post out of public view it is simply a matter of logging into each account both real and fake and then 'replying' to prepositined postings with a simple 1 or 2 line comment. This brings the unrelated postings to the top of the forum list, and the critical posting 'slides' down the front page, and quickly out of public view. Although it is difficult or impossible to censor the posting it is now lost in a sea of unrelated and unuseful postings. By this means it becomes effective to keep the readers of the forum reading unrelated and non-issue items.

This is essentially the burying technique.

Play Dumb. No matter what evidence or logical argument is offered, avoid discussing issues except with denials they have any credibility, make any sense, provide any proof, contain or make a point, have logic, or support a conclusion. Mix well for maximum effect.

...

Ignore proof presented, demand impossible proofs. This is perhaps a variant of the 'play dumb' rule. Regardless of what material may be presented by an opponent in public forums, claim the material irrelevant and demand proof that is impossible for the opponent to come by (it may exist, but not be at his disposal, or it may be something which is known to be safely destroyed or withheld, such as a murder weapon.) In order to completely avoid discussing issues, it may be required that you to categorically deny and be critical of media or books as valid sources, deny that witnesses are acceptable, or even deny that statements made by government or other authorities have any meaning or relevance.

This can be also very often seen by metrotards. Their "no one gives any valid reason to hate W8"-charade. Even if you bombard them with pages-long issues and links and stuff, they stay cool and continue to tout their 60-Million licenses sold number.

Edited April 3, 2013 by Formfiller

[Formfiller]

Touchtards are quick to anger:

http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1039757722&postcount=29

Very funny outburst.

[Formfiller]

Hal Berenson, former MS employee, writes:

http://hal2020.com/2013/03/28/windows-blue-buzz/

I find two topics coming out of the blogosphere rather bizarre. The first was an expectation by some that Microsoft would abandon Modern and return to the classic desktop. This is bizarre because it would mean a decision to turn Windows into a pure legacy offering with a slow death ahead of it. But hey, the 5% of the overall user population who are in the “desktop is the future” camp would have been happy. Anyway, there was not a snowball’s chance in hell of that happening. Microsoft may want to provide a solution optimized for the 5% for years or decades to come, but that isn’t the future for the other 95%. The right answer for the 95% is to rapidly evolve Modern to meet their needs.

The other side of this bizarre coin is those claiming that Microsoft would abandon the desktop by Windows 9. I’ve pointed out that the move away from the desktop is a 5-10 year evolution. Many other observers thing it is well over 10 years. Windows 9 would be only two years into that cycle. David Vaskevitch used to point out that people tend to overestimate the amount of change that is possible in 2 years and underestimate the amount of change that will occur in 10 years. Once again I think he’s right.

Given that he has ties with MS yada yada, I guess that's indeed how they view their 95% deskop marketshare: as 5% legacy hurdles, standing in the way and blocking the glorious metro future.

Follow up:

http://hal2020.com/2013/03/23/does-windows-rt-have-a-place-in-the-sun/#comment-8192

Commenters call on his BS, and his response is absolutely pathetic (AutoCAD on tablets...). Given that all that he's written so far jives with Microsoft's policy quite well, MS seems to have completely lost it.

It's Angry Birds or bust apparently.

Edited April 3, 2013 by Formfiller

[JorgeA]

Ah, I'm sorry for being so off-topic lately but someone mentioned Blockbuster and idiocy and I just have to comment.

Years ago, Blockbuster charged $4.02 for rentals where I lived. Of course they'd most often be paid in whole dollars because in everyone's heads the cost was an even $4. Naturally, Blockbuster wanted exact change. They posted a series of signage, becoming progressively louder and aggressive, which just became comical. Why didn't they just eat the 2 cents? It's not even 1%. Or charge $4.25? I doubt anyone would have cared that much.

And that "3-day" policy was BS. For a lot of people, the act of fetching the movie precluded actually watching it so the next day was the only realistic time to watch. The $1 rewind charge was crap, too, because they'd charge you but wouldn't rewind the tapes. Joke was on them since I bought a high-speed dedicated rewinder, the same they used in the store (or were supposed to). The thing about them, though, is they didn't respect the stopping point recognized by VCRs so it would slam pretty hard at the absolute end of the tape. Sometimes, the tape would just break. A screwdriver and some Scotch tape would fix it, of course, but I rarely felt so generous. I did tell them that the tape broke so that I wasn't screwing the next innocent renter. Once they threatened to charge me $80 for a replacement tape and I diffused the situation by asking them if they really thought they were getting $80 out of me.

That somebody was me.

The policy you describe fits right in with what I was saying. Why make things fast and convenient for your customers when there's an extra $0.02 to charge them? Just eat the cost, tell your customers about it -- use those informational posters positively instead of negatively -- and they'll love you for it. A classic case of "penny wise, pound foolish."

In our case, I stopped going to Blockbusters for several years, until I heard through the grapevine that they had fixed their ridiculous 1.5-day rental policy. But by then we'd discovered the cable company's On Demand service, and our trips to the video store after we started going back were never as frequent as before we stopped.

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

"Burying" is a standard tactic. Watch the W8 Amazon page and you will notice that pattern. It seems to be very popular by marketers ("shills").

Here's an interesting text showing some techniques in that vein:

http://pastebin.com/irj4Fyd5

It claims to be a top secret governmental document or something (conspiracies and stuff). I don't buy that. But it illustrates many used methods to control forums, review pages etc that I've noticed myself. I guess it was written by some internet-marketer with humor and background knowledge.

Excerpts:

Technique #1 - 'FORUM SLIDING'

If a very sensitive posting of a critical nature has been posted on a forum - it can be quickly removed from public view by 'forum sliding.' In this technique a number of unrelated posts are quietly prepositioned on the forum and allowed to 'age.' Each of these misdirectional forum postings can then be called upon at will to trigger a 'forum slide.' The second requirement is that several fake accounts exist, which can be called upon, to ensure that this technique is not exposed to the public. To trigger a 'forum slide' and 'flush' the critical post out of public view it is simply a matter of logging into each account both real and fake and then 'replying' to prepositined postings with a simple 1 or 2 line comment. This brings the unrelated postings to the top of the forum list, and the critical posting 'slides' down the front page, and quickly out of public view. Although it is difficult or impossible to censor the posting it is now lost in a sea of unrelated and unuseful postings. By this means it becomes effective to keep the readers of the forum reading unrelated and non-issue items.

This is essentially the burying technique.

Thanks very much for the explanation, that was illuminating. I'll keep an eye out for the technique in practice during my Web travels.

Play Dumb. No matter what evidence or logical argument is offered, avoid discussing issues except with denials they have any credibility, make any sense, provide any proof, contain or make a point, have logic, or support a conclusion. Mix well for maximum effect.

...

Ignore proof presented, demand impossible proofs. This is perhaps a variant of the 'play dumb' rule. Regardless of what material may be presented by an opponent in public forums, claim the material irrelevant and demand proof that is impossible for the opponent to come by (it may exist, but not be at his disposal, or it may be something which is known to be safely destroyed or withheld, such as a murder weapon.) In order to completely avoid discussing issues, it may be required that you to categorically deny and be critical of media or books as valid sources, deny that witnesses are acceptable, or even deny that statements made by government or other authorities have any meaning or relevance.

This can be also very often seen by metrotards. Their "no one gives any valid reason to hate W8"-charade. Even if you bombard them with pages-long issues and links and stuff, they stay cool and continue to tout their 60-Million licenses sold number.

Wow, I recognize these sorts of tactics from the political gangsters who run my native country (and the 'tards who defend them overseas). Offer blatant falsehoods as if they were fact, and demand a standard of proof from the other side that you would never apply to your own.

The head-scratcher is that this is a commercial product we're talking about here in this thread, not a political ideology. You wouldn't think it could arouse such fanatical commitment. But there you are.

--JorgeA

EDIT: typo

Edited April 3, 2013 by JorgeA

[JorgeA]

Life imitating Art imitating Life imitating Art ...

Source: Microsoft Windows 8 commercials, NOT the TV show!

That's very funny!

--JorgeA

[Formfiller]

That zombie image is spot on. We are witnessing the greatest technological regression since a long time, maybe ever. I get sick hearing from the pundits the claim that the forced touchiness is the same as the transition to GUI from CLI, utter garbage.

The new paradigm gives less functionality, is far harder to use (try to stretch your arms for a belonged time), needs far more maintenance (cleaning screens from fingerprints constantly), and is a health nightmare in the making (gorilla arm). Seriously, it inverts all the health cautionary warnings and recommendation for the office workplace. Then of course the loss of empowerment by the forced accompanying appstores, with no sensible sideloading most of the time. It's tech from hell!

I really wonder what's going in the mind of these darn ABMers (anything but mouse) promoting this garbage as the future of all computing, consumer and work alike. BS. Were they bitten by mice in the a** when they were children or something, and we have to suffer because of their traumas? Even the Minority Report interface they are always wetting their pants about is garbage in reality. Watch that scene again - it looks cool, but every cop would prefer a desktop computer after two days of standing around and twisting your arm like a retard all time.

Sorry for the strong language, needed to shout off.

Edited April 3, 2013 by Formfiller

[ciHnoN]

Microsoft playing with Windows...

[JorgeA]

Microsoft playing with Windows...

Hits the nail on the head.

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

The end for Windows RT?

Microsoft finally approves cheap 7- and 8-inch Windows 8 tablets, might merge Windows RT with Blue

It has taken almost six months, but Microsoft has finally given the green light to low-resolution (1024×768), 7- and 8-inch Windows 8 tablets. In related news, Microsoft’s Windows RT woes continue, with a supply chain rumor that RT will be merged with Blue, due to an almost complete lack of consumer interest. Both of these stories highlight just how poorly Microsoft is doing in the tablet market — which, if we factor in Windows Phone’s continued apathy, and the steady decline of the desktop PC market, is a rather big issue.

If the upstream supply chain is to be believed, Microsoft will retire the Windows RT brand and merge it with Windows Blue — the upcoming service/feature pack for Windows 8. According to the source, general confusion around what Windows RT actually is, and Microsoft failing to communicate the differences between the ARM and x86 editions of Windows, has “significantly damaged demand” for Windows RT. This seems to jibe with Samsung’s move to not launch a Windows RT tablet in the US and to pull its Windows RT tablet out of several European markets citing a lack of demand.

--JorgeA

[vinifera]

I hate Google and Apple but in this case I rather cheer for their tablet success over winblows 8 tablets

from new leaked build screen shots I see MS doing nothing to improve the product

but rather continuing blindly to metro crap push

Edited April 3, 2013 by vinifera

[Formfiller]

You've got to admit it's quite funny how many new haters for themselves they have created in such a short time.

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

It's Angry Birds or bust apparently.

Yep. Let's see what the MetroTards are spending their parents' money on, shall we ...

Fruit Ninja currently the number one downloaded paid Windows 8 app ( NeoWin 2013-04-03 )

• 
  01. Fruit Ninja ($1.99)
  02. Disney Fairies Hidden Treasures ($4.99)
  03. Angry Birds Star Wars ($4.99)
  04. Rayman Jungle Run ($2.99)
  05. Plex ($2.99)
  06. Big Buck Hunter ($4.99)
  07. Angry Birds Space ($4.99)
  08. My Media Center ($4.99)
  09. Royal Envoy 2: Special Edition ($3.99)
  10. Zoo Train ($1.99)

P.S. Formfiller, feel free to post that Zombie image ( or any of them ) in those hostile forums, if they'll let you