I think Microsoft has finally gotten its act together for Windows 10. It has removed or fixed many of the things I hated about Windows 8, and added missing features.
Some Web sites drive me crazy. Here are some examples:
Spotify.com
Someone used one of my e-mail addresses to sign up for a Spotify account. Unlike properly-designed sites, Spotify does not send an e-mail that must be acknowledged in order that the account be activated. So I am getting spammed with many of their e-mails. The usual thing is to follow the unsubscribe link in the e-mail (not a good thing to do with real spam) to unsubscribe. But Spotify makes you log in to access the unsubscribe link. Of course, I do not have the login credentials.
The ITER fusion project being build in the South of France should be stopped. The world should wait for the results from the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator in Greifswald Germany that is almost completed.
Panasonic Arc5—Great shave, design flaw
I have been a fan of Panasonic wet/dry electric shavers for many years. Just in time for the holidays, Panasonic came out with their latest and greatest (and priciest) shaver, the Arc5, Model ES-LV65s. I treated myself to one for Christmas.
The two main new features of this device are a motor that keeps a constant speed when it encounters a tough stretch of beard, and a foil that has tapered holes. And yes, this is indeed the best shave yet for me from a Panasonic razor.
NordicTrack and iFit—Good idea, awful execution
Update 2:
My NordicTrack model no longer works with iFit! They require Bluetooth instead of WiFi. It took 3 hours of frustration to figure this out. Furthermore, iFit has a replacement part to fix this, and they never informed me, and the part is no longer available. So I have a treadmill with just boring workouts.
Update: (10 July 2017)
I am currently very dissatisfied with every browser available for OS X (a Mac). A firm requirement for any browser I use is that there is a version of Last Pass for it. This limits my choices to just four options:
I recently went on a birding trip to Scotland with my camera and a long lens, but this was not sufficient to see most birds. On the trip, I tried many different binoculars, and discovered that I absolutely needed to have image stabilization. Without it, my shakey hands make the image bounce about. The image-stabilized Canon binoculars that I tried worked well, but were heavy. The all-weather image-stabilized Canons all cost almost $2000 and are quite heavy (2–3 pounds). In addition, I am a photography nut and want to take pictures of what I see in my binoculars.
I am a firm believer that having the government support or run many areas of endeavor is not a bad thing. But there are ways to dramatically reduce the overhead involved in administering these programs.
What should government be involved in, and why?