window functions

Dave Plummer, a retired Microsoft engineer who wrote Task Manager, responds to the claim that Windows sucks. He describes how he would fix common annoyances, in what he calls a love letter to Windows wrapped in a rant.

Linus Tech Tips explains how Windows Modern Standby causes laptops to drain battery while asleep, arguing it makes Windows laptops hard to recommend compared to MacBooks.

A former Microsoft SDET with 15 years on Windows gives his view on why Windows 10 updates keep shipping with bugs. He points to changes in how the company tests its software.

TheRasteri upgrades a single PC through every Windows version, from early releases through Windows 10, testing that old software keeps running. It is an updated version of the Chain of Fools experiment.

Tom Scott explains why Windows does not let you name a file CON, tracing the reserved device names back to backwards compatibility with DOS.

Chris Pirillo has his father try Windows 8 for the first time to see how ordinary users cope with the new interface.

TheRasteri installs MS-DOS and Windows 1.0, then upgrades in place through nearly every Windows version up to Windows 7, checking which programs survive. Even Doom from 1993 still runs at the end.

LGR reviews the weeCee, a tiny mini PC that boots MS-DOS and Windows from a microSD card. It offers Sound Blaster Pro and General MIDI compatibility with VGA output, and the video tries it with DOS and Windows 98 games.

A REACT episode where teenagers try Windows 95 for the first time and react to the retro interface and technology.

A 2007 video of someone trying to write Perl scripts using Windows Vista speech recognition, with comically bad results. The footage shows the recognizer repeatedly mangling commands.

A 2007 side-by-side demo comparing Windows Vista's Aero interface with Ubuntu running Beryl/Compiz, showing effects such as the desktop cube and burning windows.

First of a three-part tutorial series on the i3 tiling window manager for Linux. It explains what i3 is, how to install it on Ubuntu, and how to use it.

Dave2D reviews the Lenovo Legion Go S running Valve's SteamOS instead of Windows, calling it the first true competitor to the Steam Deck. He compares handheld gaming performance and experience across the two operating systems.

Linus Tech Tips compares Microsoft's Surface Pro X (SQ2) with the Apple M1 MacBook Air, focusing on how Windows on Arm and x86 emulation perform against Apple's Arm hardware. The verdict is that the Surface falls well short.

Posy gives a short history of the computer mouse cursor, from early straight pointers to the tilted arrow, comparing Apple and Windows designs. He then explains why he designed his own cursor set and offers it as a free download.

An RSA Animate in which Steven Pinker explains how the mind builds infinite meanings from finite language, and why people often speak indirectly. It covers ambiguity, politeness and mutual knowledge, including the emperor's new clothes example.

Technology Connections explains why single-hose portable air conditioners are inefficient and often a poor choice compared with window units. It details how the single hose pulls in warm outside air and wastes energy.

John Scholes builds a depth-first tree-search operator step by step in a Dyalog APL session. It covers higher-order functions and runs the search on the N-Queens problem.

A short Art of the Problem clip explaining Diffie-Hellman key exchange, using a paint mixing analogy for one-way functions and touching on modular arithmetic and discrete logarithms.

A comedy song by onedeadtroll, from the Windows XP and OS X 10.3 era, lamenting that every operating system is bad. It features Wes Borg and Chris Smith.

A 2007 video of someone trying to write Perl code using Windows Vista's speech recognition, with hilariously bad results.

A spectrogram analysis of Aphex Twin's track commonly called [Equation] from Windowlicker, rendered from a lossless version. At about 5:30 the spectrogram reveals an image of Richard D. James's face.

Robert Miles gives a remastered introduction to AI safety, adapted from a talk in London. It lays out why advanced AI could go wrong and answers common objections.

DIY Perks shows how to turn old or smashed TVs and monitors into realistic artificial window lights, using the backlight and Fresnel lens to simulate distant daylight.

A vintage demo video of the BeOS operating system running on mid-90s hardware. It shows media playback and window manipulation staying smooth at the same time.

Excerpts from Linus Torvalds's DebConf 14 talk on why desktop Linux struggles. He covers application distribution, distros breaking backwards compatibility, wasted package management effort and how Windows does app distribution better.

Matthias Wandel uses anemometer measurements to find where to place a fan to move the most air through a house at night. He finds that placing the fan some distance back from the window works better.

Rick Beato argues that adults cannot develop true perfect pitch, which he ties to critical-period brain plasticity and language acquisition. He says it can only be developed in young children, and discusses the research behind this.

Johnny Lee demonstrates head tracking with a Wii remote and a head-mounted pair of IR LEDs, so a screen acts like a window into a 3D scene as your head moves.

A short overview of Tabs Outliner, a Chrome extension that shows browser tabs and windows as a nestable tree. It demonstrates organizing, saving and restoring tabs.

A 1984 Computer Chronicles segment in which Susan Kare explains the ergonomics and interface design of the original Macintosh. She introduces the interface step by step for newcomers.

Inigo Quilez shows step by step how to build a simple heart shape from mathematics and shaders, with code on Shadertoy. It is an introduction to procedural graphics and signed distance functions.

Dave2D looks at why MacBook speakers sound so much better than those on other laptops, with input from an audio researcher. He compares them against the best Windows laptop speakers.

A short look at CoeLux, an artificial skylight that recreates the scattering process that makes the sky look blue, producing a convincing illusion of distant sun and depth.

Six minutes of street scenes from New York City in 1993, captured from a D-Theater HD DVHS demo tape that reused footage shot for the Japanese HiVision market. It shows Times Square and other sights in high-definition video.

Steve Jobs's January 2007 MacWorld keynote segment introducing the original iPhone. He presents it as a widescreen iPod, a phone and an internet communicator in one device.

A short documentary on the 2015 Yale Halloween costume controversy and the confrontation with Nicholas Christakis. Filmmaker Rob Montz investigates campus free speech and the state of the university afterward.

A creator runs an informal live test of whether Google or Facebook listen through the microphone to target ads, using Chrome on Windows 10. The description admits the methodology is flawed, including that live streaming itself records the microphone.

Highlights from Doug Engelbart's December 1968 demonstration at SRI, the first public showing of the mouse, hypertext, windows, real-time collaborative editing and shared-screen teleconferencing. This is a roughly six-minute condensed version of the full demo.

LGR reviews the Danmere Backer16, a 1996 backup system that stored a PC's data on ordinary VHS tapes through a VCR. He shows the hardware and software on Windows 3.1 and 95.