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I understand the Fitt's Law concepts behind a top menu bar, but I wonder if this is a scenario with moving goalposts.

On a 1984 Mac, you had like 512x384 pixels and a system that could barely run one program at a time. There was little to no possible uncertainty as to who owned the menu bar. (Could desk accessories even take control of the menu bar?)

But once you got larger resolutions and the ability to have multiple full-size programs running at once, the menu bar could belong to any of them. Now, theoretically, you should notice which is the currently active window and assume it owns the menu bar, but ISTR scenarios where you'd close the window but the program would still be running, owning the menu bar, or the "active" window was less visually prominent due to task switching, etc.

The Windows design-- placing the menu inside the window it controls-- avoids any ambiguity there. Clicking "File-Save" in Notepad couldn't possibly be interpreted as trying to do anything to the Paintbrush window next to it.


The problem with the Mac UI is that the app's menubar can only be accessed by the mouse (can't remember what accessibility-enabled mode would allow).

Under Windows, one can access the app's menubar by pressing the ALT key to move focus up to the menubar and use the cursor keys to navigate along the menubar. If you know the letter associated with the top-level menu (shown as underlined), then ALT-[letter] would access that top-level menu (typically ALT-F would get you to the File menu). So the Windows user wouldn't have to move the mouse at all, Fitt's Law to the max (or is it min? whatever, it's instant access).

For the ultrawide monitors these days (width >= 4Kpx), if you have an app window maximized (or even spanning more than half the screen), accessing the menu via mouse is just terrible ergonomics on any major OS.


Since OS X 10.3 (2003) Control+F2 moves focus to the Apple menu. The arrow keys can then select any menu item which is selected with Return or canceled with Escape. Command+? will bring you to a search box in the Help menu. Not only that, any menu item in any app can be bound to any keyboard shortcut of the user's choosing not just the defaults provided by the system or application.

There's a very reasonable argument behind that, though.

"Sending" a file to another disc or on the network is non-transformative. At the far end, it's still a file.

But "printing" is inherently transformative-- you're expecting to get something clearly not a file (print-to-file pseudo-printers excepted).

I can see the desire for minimalism-- having seperate rows for "share/send" and "print" is, well, two seperate rows. But if you offer adaptable and configurable interfaces, I could see suppressing one or both depending on context or user preferences. (You have no external drives or registered share-recipients? No "Send To/Share")


Maybe I've been in Linux land too long but sending a file to a printer seems pretty obvious to me. Yes it's transformative in a way, but you could equally argue that my word document with A4 layout is a digital version of a document, and the print out is equivalent.

To me there seems to be more difference between sending and share. One is pushing something somewhere, the other implies making it available for someone/thing to pull.

I'm not particularly saying you're wrong btw. We are talking metaphors, and there's no 'correct' way to do it.



20 years ago, I used it a bit for my undergraduate work. Mostly as a "word processor that's prettier than... I suppose at the time, the old WordPerfect 8 for Linux"

The weird thing is that my family has started going to Red Robin recently. They started doing one thing right at least.

Their recent $9.99-with-drink special happens to be pretty exactly what most of our party wants when we go to a burger place. Who are the people who want the burgers with the 25 exotic toppings? It doesn't beat the local institution with the big wood-coal grill, but that place is 25km further away, and a few dollars per head more, so it's the "let's have an okay lunch and then finish our Saturday errands" choice.

It's not packed, but at least at the locations near us, the management seems to be very attentive-- like they're trying to at least keep an eye on the customer experience after blowing it up.

TBH, I think the meal special INCLUDING a drink is a very smart direction for for both RR and Chili's. I suspect that consumers are getting wise to the "hide the queen" pricing tricks, where they bury the costs of loss-leader entrees in the side or drink. There aren't many places our family of four can get a sit-down lunch for less than USD60 before tip, and RR is one of them.


PATA-SATA adapters, the $3 AliExpress kind, seem to handle CHS fine. I have dumps of 40Mb and 200Mb drives from such adapters.

With a PATA-SATA bridge support for CHS is up to the BIOS / OS

With a USB adapter though it's up to the adapter itself to support that which they generally don't do


What interface chip is this? Can you elaborate?

There are also PATA SSD that are a bit more reliable, and fit the standard mount on older laptops. Because some models include several workarounds for older equipment (automatic wear leveling), these can last quite some time even with an OS that never supported SSD (turn off swap when possible).

If it is something important like old equipment, a CompactFlash SLC card with a PATA adapter is a proven solution.

Usually it is better to drop an old OS image into a 86box, and make the recovered backing image read-only. =3


These are entirely different use cases. I already use IDE-SATA adapters, IDE-CF adapters, IDE-SD adapters, FlashFloppy and what not.

ATAboy is about accessing early IDE HDD on current computers.

My question was which usb-ide chipsets are known to handle CHS (and not just LBA).


Indeed, I also went through the ddrescue trial-and-error process with USB adapters to avoid large file corruption bugs, BIOS specific setup quirks, and proprietary controller remapping (seagate.)

Ultimately, it was almost always better to pull the disk image on the original hardware when possible, or use a legacy 32bit x86 PC to direct access the drive controller when BIOS doesn't support the drive. Best of luck =3


They didn't have to box themselves into "pitching electric cars to right-wing climate change deniers."

I've heard there are rumours there are least three or four countries outside the US. In several of them, EVs are selling like like hotcakes, or at least not with the current American militant hostility to the very concept.

I suspect they spent too long riding the horse they got here on though. Making an EV appealing to American premium buyers was a marketing coup. Selling it as a software-style "we'll continue iterating with OTA updates" was an interesting alternative to the model-year redesign when you're targeting an early-adopter audience used to regular software refreshes.

But now these things are a liability. Your product matrix is full of America-centric designs with iffy product-market fits in other markets (will a Model S or Cybertruck literally fit in some side streets of Europe or Asia?) You've failed to make a recognizable, exciting redesign of an existing model, so what you do have looks dated. You never really developed a reputation for quality or reliability. These are product problems that have nothing to do with politics. You could have addressed them and been a viable player elsewhere, even as the US continues to eat itself alive. (Of course, that might have involved not intentionally rubbing your brand all over a highly polarizing and toxic political scenario)

I was excited about Tesla back when they were a novelty. I can recall going to the mall with the Microsoft Store (remember those? They sold "bloatfree" PCs because it used to be the OEM who loaded them full of crapware instead of MS itself) to buy a Windows 8 tablet, and then looking across the aisle to see a Model S on display at the Tesla "not really a dealership" stall.

I bought like $2000 in shares back then, figuring one day, jokingly, they'd be worth enough to exchange for a new Tesla. It looks like I could probably get one now. But these days, I just want a BYD; they seem to be actually building a coherent product line and long-term vision.


I always wondered how ARM lost the plot there.

Considering the original ARM use case was a desktop-computer shaped thing with some degree of expandability, they had to solve the same problems that the PC did in bringup/enumeration/device abstraction. These should be solved problems.

At some point between Archimedes and iPhone, they lost this functionality. I assume there was a moment where they assumed that they were only doing SoCs with fixed peripherals and jettisoned all their knowledge and tooling in the space.


> ...lost the plot...

> ...jettisoned all their knowledge and tooling in the space.

ARM made a smart decision not to compete against Intel/AMD at the cutting edge, and instead completely dominated the low-power CPU market.

> These should be solved problems.

They are. The solutions have nothing to do with the ISA. The device discovery functionality you're talking about (ACPI/BIOS/etc) is provided by the motherboard, and (in the case of ACPI) made available to the OS by the bootloader. SoC's don't need sophisticated device discovery.


I'm curious about "good storage conditions".

What are the threat models for tape, and how much do they vary for discs?

I assume if I leave either in my car in an Arizona summer day, it's toast. But are tapes more prone to mould damage in a damp climate, or media shedding if fed through a slightly out-of-adjustment drive?

The problem with M-disc was that it was always a sideshow on the mainstream optical disc market-- like LightScribe/LabelFlash, it was a feature most people weren't interested in except for possibly box-checking during purchase. The main audience was still people buying generic blank discs and burning single use discs or short-term backups.

There is/was an opportunity to box the product up with a clear marketing message of "here's a SMB-scale backup solution", something cheaper than tape, and more built-for-purpose than buying USB hard drives and dangling them off the back of a PC.

I'm picturing the M-disc technology but each disc is pre-installed in a cartridge to discourage accidental scratches/fingerprints/leaving surfaces directly exposed to the sun. It reinforces the "this is durable and you can probably put legal documents you might need for 5-10-20 years on it and leave it in a safe" story. This also creates a vendor-lockin product at a premium price, while quality conventional CD/DVD media was always competing with "but Fry's has spindles of 500 discs for $12.99!"


Optimal LTO tape storage requires a stable, clean environment, ideally 15°C to 25°C (59°F to 77°F) and 20% to 50% relative humidity (non-condensing), which can preserve data for up to 30 years. Tapes must be stored vertically in their protective plastic cases to prevent sagging and contamination.


I bought a 3174-1L from my university because it was $20 and I didn't know that 1) it was a boat anchor without the rest of the system and 2) it wouldn't actually fit in the back seat of a Hyundai Sonata and 3) it was wired for 208v so doubly useless in mu 110v country.

I'm pretty sure there was some sort of local processing power, since it had a floppy drive to load "firmware" discs. I await the Doom port.


How are they getting 20% on a deposit that presumably could be called up at any time, and how can I get in on it when the stupid "High Yield" accounts I can find top out at around 4%?


large businesses have large cash borrowing needs. if they borrow for free from their customers, it reduces the other borrowing they would need to do, so the rate to use is not what interest rate is available to you, but rather how much interest that Starbucks would need to pay for loans that size. Furthermore, whereas dividends are taxed twice (once as profit for the company and again as regular income to the shareholder), interest is a tax deduction to the company (which decreases their taxable profits) and for a percentage of debtholders that interest income is also taxed advantageously.

probably doesn't come up to 20% (unless Starbucks is in junk bond territory) but it's higher than the investment rate of 4% that you're quoting.


They may buy bonds or something like that.


For a 20% return in a year?

The numbers given have to be incorrect.


Oh yeah I wasn't taking OPs number at face value


probably 2%, not 20%.


Yielding a yearly 20%?


If anyone knows of _any_ investment yielding a yearly 20% reliably, I'd certainly be interested. If Starbucks figured that out, I don't know why they're bothering making coffee.


Do they include expiring credit in that figure?

Most of the time they have a buried clause that says that you forfeit all of your credit or get charged an inactivity fee if there have been no account transactions or no credit added for 12 or 18 months. Same reason why you should never buy gift cards.


This may apply in the US but not everywhere. In Canada it is illegal to expire and take back money on gift cards.

So they can keep collecting interest on it forever, but they have to keep the balance for you indefinitely.


The U.S. as well.

By law, gift cards never expire.

Unfortunately, I have several gift cards I didn't use before the store expired.


I’ve seen gift cards work around this by charging a “monthly maintenance fee” after a year of inactivity.


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