The alignment error of the bike steering wheel is not desirable; it's just [usually] small and consistent enough to not become an issue. If someone is selling you a bike, and you bring this up, a honest seller would say "yes, the alignment is slightly wrong, all bikes are like this. It should not affect the functionality of the product".

However, Microsoft is not a honest seller. "It gives you a head start" is just weasel words to say "you'll get used to this flaw", without outright saying so. If Microsoft were to sell you a bike, it would be one where the steering is so completely off alignment that you noticed it, sometimes throwing you towards random directions, with Spataro then saying "it's fiiiine~ [slaps bike] it'll be a good exercise for your arms!".

Contrariwise to what your comment contextually implies, in no moment the author implied that the product is not useful. The author is highlighting that Microsoft is twisting words to put a positive spin on the flaw, instead of being upfront with it. And the author is right on that, also when he associates this sort of word twisting with the lack of trust that people have on tech companies.

As reading the news, my first thought was "short-haired poodles". A poodle is 10% of an affectionate, smart and highly trainable creature, and 90% hairy mess. If only we could have the 10% without the 90%...

It's less that the environment needs to be narrowed down to 2-3 distros, and more that users should promote 2-3 general usage distros, instead of picking fights over stupid shit like APT vs. RPM or rolling release vs. point release or KDE vs. Xfce vs. MATE. That's why I usually recommend newbies "Ubuntu, Fedora, or Mint; pick the one you like the best, it isn't a big deal" even if I use none of them (I use Debian).

I'm saying that because a lot of those distros exist for good reasons, but those reasons don't matter for newbies.

Also better for the economy as a whole in the long run.

The whole business model of those companies is like a glazier convincing people to break their own windows. It is not just environmentally harmful, but also a waste of resources, specially human labour, that could be better spent on things that actually improve the overall life quality of other human beings.

ChatGPT is a tool and it should be treated as such.

Well, they're sentient enough to make masochistic comments on /. like yours, right.

On a more serious note: if you don't care about this sort of stuff they might die early, making the process more expensive. Because then you need to replace the worms constantly, instead of just letting them do their thing while you feed them styrofoam.

Thankfully my gut feeling (eh) says that this is caused by a lack of nutrients, not something that styrofoam has that is screwing up their health. (I might be wrong.) If that's correct then it's just about providing those nutrients with the foam, either to the worms or whatever bacterium that they want to bioengineer with the same "I don't care about the content, I care about the package!" capabilities.

You know the drill.

A somewhat old comment gets from +4 Insightful to -1 Offtopic after being moderated Flamebait. In the matter of seconds.
The messages about comment moderation pop up in the panel, then disappear after a F5.
"Not suspicious at all."

Dice, if you're trying to cull anti-Beta comments, at least pretend some honesty and do it transparently.

Time to go to SoylentNews.

If you're unsatisfied with our complains, then leave. That's simple.

They aren't even trying to hide it. If you check firehose, you'll see plenty of good-rated "stories" about Beta sucking... but none of them makes to the first page.

I don't think you got what I meant...

And regarding your sig: that's the idea, polluting it until they stop pushing for the beta. Ah, don't you like us whining? Shut up and go.

I'm calling some /g/entlemen instead.

...if a star can emerge from Slashdot Beta. That shit is a black hole of user interface hell.

I'm usually open to changes. Mildly curious. As long as there is a viable option for something, I'll consider trying it.
But seriously... after trying Beta Slashdot FOR FIVE MINUTES, I can't help but agree with most comments against it.
It's akin to Microsoft Bob. The beta sucks.
And it took me five minutes to conclude it, a record.

Stop throwing G+/FB/Twitter buttons at our faces. If we want to share something, we will, by the ways/sites WE want to share it.
Being allowed to filter comments by being funny, informative or whatever is cool. But where are the fucking summaries?
Why mess with font size, if we can simply use Ctrl+mousewheel if we need so? [And this is coming from a myopic person.]

Five minutes.

In a nutshell, "Latinate" means Latin-like or resembling Latin; "derived" in that case is more along the lines of "inspired by". Romance languages aren't like Latin; they are Latin after two millenniums. Thus, for the languages, using "Romance" [common in English language] or "Neo-Latin" [common in Romance languages] is preferred.

On the other hand, it's fairly acceptable to use "Latinate" for features borrowed from Latin - both in English and in those [as re-borrowings].