2014/10/02

Windows 10 Preview

Microsoft released their Windows 10 Preview video talking about their core experience. Within a day, there are several videos on YouTube already regarding this, and I guess no one has been invited to have his first hands-on experience, so what those vloggers can do is merely repeating what Microsoft has to say, and no further detail could be included other than speculations.

And I'm just going to do the same, and I feel the need to do so, as a regular ordinary user.

First, it is ok to skip a major release number (Windows 9), but please give me a good reason to, or at lease give me some acronyms that I can't possibly understand even if you give me full names. Well, I am joking, but you get what I mean. Virtual desktop is so 20th century to me. I am not a tech savvy person, but back in those days when I was interested in network administration stuff, and spent lots of time on Linux from 1999 to 2001, virtual desktop was already there. Premature looking, according to how we see things today, maybe, but it is definitely not something to brag about to have this feature in the new release, and that is exactly how I felt when Apple included this feature in their MacOS few years ago, and Apple's version was already an elegant design at that time.

Microsoft also talked about what is known as Mission Control in MacOS, and I sincerely hope they can do better than MacOS. My problem with MacOS is that if I open too many applications at one time, and when I click Mission Control for look for another application that is buried so many layers under, the arrangement of Mission Control is elegant, but it takes time for eyes to roll to the right one, like few seconds, which may not seem a long time, but certainly an eternity when concentration is needed, and interruption would be devastating in creative works. I found it much quicker to click on the application icon in the Dock, since I know exactly where it is, like a knee jerk, which renders Mission Control useless to me.

I am not sure I like the start menu to come back or not. I feel the ability to move the mouse horizontally is a prerequisite to browse through start menu successfully, and I am having some difficulties in this field. Not having many applications on my computer, and having a Dock to include all the applications I run most of the times seem suitable to me. Personalizing the tiles is definitely welcome and desired feature, and so is dynamic update of contents.

It seems that there will be one version of Windows 10 for all devices, and I sincerely hope that is the case. No more confusing Home Basic, Home Premium, Enterprise that makes decisions hard to make in the 3C stores. And lastly, I checked my Terminal in my MacOS, copy and paste has already been implemented. 


2014/09/23

How to Burn Down Your Kitchen

Ingredients:

  • Oil
  • Fish fillet, or whatever that may seem work for you

Preparation:

  • Adjust the temperature of your refrigerator so that the temperature on the top shelf is enough to freeze water.
  • Put the fish fillet on the top shelf. The fish fillet I used for this experiment is thick on one side, and thin on the other. When I took it out of the refrigerator, the thick side was very firm, but the thin side was hard frozen, with a thin layer of ice attached.

Procedure:

  • Heat a small pan and put the oil in.
  • When the oil is very hot, put the fish in.
The thin layer of ice quickly melts and splashes feverishly, carrying oil into the air in droplets. When the pan is small and the stove is turned on high, the flame could be large enough to go around the edge of the pan, and ignites the oil droplets to cause the flame. 


Q and A:


A: My flame was huge enough to touch kitchen ventilator above the stove.

A: Terrified. During the few seconds (or eternity in my very own experience), I just stood there petrified and mind blank. Now that we are talking about it, I believe (and am not sure) I did not even try to turn off the stove.

A: I do not have a fire extinguiser at home, so I think if it ever happens again (I sincerely hope not), the first thing I need to do is to turn off the stove, and then to fetch my blanket, and be ready to yell to the neighbors for help and call 911.

A: Just some black burn marks on the kitchen tiles, and splashes of oil everywhere on the stove.

A: Thanks for having me.