Stop Changing the Windows 10 User Interface

 I have had the line I was typing in your feedback erased 5 times by your stupid X. I am now typing this in Notepad.

I am so sick of t

Oh my God. Even in Notepad, my lines are being erased. What the. Am I hitting the damn keys too hard?

One more time.

Stop changing the UI without my express permission. 

Do I like the Windows 8 menu in my Windows 10 computer with its stupid clunky boxes and bizarre start menu and dysfunctional right-mouse-button (a la MAC)? No. I hate it. I loathe it. It's why I stayed far, far away from Windows 8. And every time I have to reinstall Windows 10 the smell of your new start menu comes back like a toxic fart.

I hate grouping in Windows Explorer. Did you ask if I wanted grouping? No.

Are you giving me easy ways to change back to what I was used to? To what I liked? So I didn't have to stare at your latest "improvement"? No.

Oh, sorry, that will require you to obtain 3rd party software to fix our new and improved feature to something that lets you access your information without a computer science degree. Or to try right-clicking in white spaces to find choices that are not there in order to change the way every other window works. Or to edit the Registry with its many programs and modules and data stored in one file (a single failure point) that if you screw it up, you are screwed so many different ways if you can't find your backup.

Oh, wait. I have a BS in computer science. And a BS in Math. And I have programmed in Ada, MSDos, Assembly, BASIC, COBOL, SNOBOL, Fortran, Forth, SAS, C, C#, C++, F, Pascal, Delphi, Visual Basic, HTML, SQL, and others that I don't even remember.

I used BBSs and a 150 baud modem before there was a World Wide Web. I used AOL and collected their CDs to make art. I wrote a whole assembly terminal program to use my TRS-80 Model III to hook up to a University's IBM 360. All because I needed to insert a delay after a CRLF, otherwise characters that had been echoed back as received disappeared. I've used paper tape from TTYs to store programs on. I've carted around boxes of punched cards of data and statistical analysis programs. I've used magnetic tapes that had to be mounted and unmounted on mainframes. Graphics terminals. Keypunch machines. Mainframes. Graphic plotters. Home computers that didn't have hard drives. MicroPCs. Laptops, desktops, tablets, and smartphones. I have used cassette tapes for storage. I've used 5-inch and 3.5-inch floppies and numerous USB sticks along with SD and microSD memory cards and HDDs and SSDs and clouds.

I've repaired people's PCs, both hardware and software.

I'm not stupid. But I am so tired of speed bumps added to the UIs on your OSs. It's like you are programming for nerds while your target market is people who are not very computer literate. 

If I wanted obscure UIs I would be using LINUX. For some tasks, it uses a stupid 30- or 40- or 50-year-old command-line interface that for simple tasks requires looking up every single obscure procedure, as if higher programming languages were never invented. But I am reconsidering my hate relationship with Linux.

Did my significant other like it when the UI on her tablet changed? No. She threw it back at me with some choice words and gave up on the idea of ever using a tablet again. Not when she had struggled to understand how to use it and it morphed into something she was not familiar with. Without her permission.

This is my feedback. Now pardon me while I once again try to become an alcoholic.

Photo IDs Are Not About Election Integrity

• From the supposedly pro-life party.

  
  
  A woman was convicted of voter fraud for casting a provisional ballot in 2016. They convicted her for the same reason she had to cast a provisional ballot. Her vote was never even counted. OMG! Voter Fraud! Look, look, over here! Don't look over there!
  
  Voter ID laws are strictly aimed at people who vote Democratic. Polling places have long used other means to verify that the person voting is who they say. Trump's vision of busloads of illegal aliens voting plus people who vote and then put on a mustache and vote again is just delusional. Voter ID laws. Add in just a few of the many other tools of radical conservatives:
• gerrymandering,
• eliminating voting places and creating long lines,
• purging of voter registrations of likely Democrats,
• not letting people vote who owe the government money (poll taxes),
• blocking former prisoners from voting,
• restricting of early voting (fewer days and hours, no voting on Sunday),
• restricting absentee voting,
• misinformation such as the mailing of incorrect voting times or days,
• eliminating drop boxes (or creating illegal 'private' drop boxes),
• voter intimidation (think watchers with guns),
• refusal to adequately fund election security (hacking)

If you think voter ID laws are about honest elections, think again.

One Person's Absolute Control of Congress

One person, elected by the people in only one state, should not decide the fate of almost all Congressional legislation.

The right of Preferential Recognition (first recognition) by the presiding officer of the Senate (either the Vice President or a President pro tempore) given to the Majority Leader enables Mitch McConnell to block any legislation or nomination he does not like. 

Each session, hundreds of House bills go to the Senate, where they die because of McConnell's Scheduling Veto. Those bills never reach the Senate floor for a vote, even if most of the Senate supports any of those bills.

Similarly, McConnell refused to hold hearings on President Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland for a Supreme Court seat. For almost a year, that seat remained unfilled until a Republican president was elected. President Trump was then given the privilege of nominating someone else more to Mitch McConnell's liking.

But that right is not in The Constitution, it is not a law, and it is not in the Senate Rules. That right exists only because of precedent. Nothing is preventing the President of the Senate from recognizing someone else first. This alone would end McConnell's absolute control of Congress.

From: U.S. Senate: Floor Leaders' Right of Priority Recognition

"Later in 1937, Vice President John Nance Garner, a former Speaker of the House who valued leadership prerogatives, announced a new policy. Under the Senate rule requiring the presiding officer to "recognize the Senator who shall first address him," Garner established the precedent of giving priority recognition to the majority leader and then to the minority leader before all other senators seeking to speak. These two 1937 developments–priority recognition and front-row seating–contributed greatly to the evolution of modern Senate floor leadership."

From: How the Vice President Limits the Power of Senate Majorities

"Article I, section 3, clause 5 of the Constitution permits senators to select a President pro tempore to fill in as Presiding Officer when the Vice President is unable to do so."

"The leader was first granted priority of recognition in 1937 pursuant to a ruling made by Vice President John (“Cactus Jack”) Nance Garner while presiding over the Senate. But the 1937 ruling is not irreversible. Any Vice President presiding over the Senate in the future could just as easily break with past practice and recognize another senator in lieu of the Majority Leader."

From: What makes Senate leaders so powerful?

"Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said that he alone decides what bills get considered on the Senate floor. When asked if the Senate would consider legislation to protect special counsel Robert Mueller, McConnell responded, 'I’m the one who decides what we take to the floor, that’s my responsibility as the majority leader, and we will not be having this on the floor of the Senate.'”

"The majority leader has the right of first recognition pursuant to precedent." 

"By creating the right of preferential recognition, the Garner precedent serves as the foundation on which leader power is based in the Senate today. Since any member can technically make a motion to proceed to legislation or a nomination under the Senate’s rules, being the first to do so enables the majority leader to set the schedule and control the agenda to a limited degree."

It is up to the Vice President to end the Scheduling Veto, strip Mitch McConnell of his dictatorial power, and make the Senate functional once more.