I went ahead and installed it. Windows 7 is compelling, but still, it has been overhyped.

Good:

1. I get the impression that most reviews became enamored with the new task bar, which, while compelling and does save a lot of time, is not entirely critical to me.
2. If the tablet functions of Vista were its only must-have features, then the alternate input improvements are the key selling points of Windows 7 for me. Here we have much improved Chinese handwriting recognition and speech recognition (in particular, dictation) in multiple languages. These have passed the critical threshold of being useable and indeed I can say they are better than keyboard input. That is no small feat.
3. Math input panel, as mentioned previously, is not quite up to par yet, but I can see a lot of potential. While it is faster than typing straight LaTeX, it is not faster than LyX. But for labeling figures, this is perhaps useful.
4. PowerShell, i.e. Monad, is beautiful.
5. The volume controller has been restored to usefulness, with audio loopback for devices now possible.
6. Libraries could be a very useful feature, but seems to be lacking something that helps ease their management.
7. Per-file versioning (from system restore) should be very helpful.

Bad:

(Read the article)

Comments(0)

This article (also this) proposes that there are two types of perfect pitch, “ability to perceptually encode” and “heightened tonal memory”. And these groups perform differently on a tonal matching test. I take the first to mean the ability to match any tone whatsoever precisely, while the second one to mean the ability to have long-term memory of certain heard tones.
(Read the article)

Comments(0)

Old news but news to me.

Cingular, which just a year or two ago acquired AT&T Wireless and changed everything to the orange color scheme, will change everything back to AT&T again.

What?

The newly reborn AT&T, fresh off of digesting BellSouth, plans to turn off the lights on their Cingular Wireless brand by next year and name it AT&T Wireless.

What?

Cingular originally was unconnected to AT&T; it was a joint venture between SBC and BellSouth.

Subsequently, AT&T sold its wireless assets to Cingular; AT&T proper remained a separate company, and “AT&T Wireless” ceased to exist.

Last year, SBC acquired what was left of AT&T, but they adopted the AT&T corporate name (due to its much stronger brand recognition). This made Cingular a joint venture of AT&T and BellSouth.

Now AT&T intends to acquire BellSouth. Once again, the AT&T brand will survive the takeover, meaning that AT&T will own 100% of Cingular.

What??

Thirty-odd years after the break-up of AT&T, it is piecing itself back together… hoho, the regulators of the 70s must be rolling in their graves… or wheelchairs, whatever.

Comments(0)