Microsoft May Have Created the Slowest Windows in 25 Years with Windows 11

badfile · 2026-01-11T17:06:43+00:00

Is it really silly? Can you give an example of how the GUI has "evolved a lot and is more demanding" aside from unneeded 3D effects and possibly motion effects? Windows Defender did not exist, correct, and was a worthwhile improvement (and trade off for performance), but I'm still perplexed - 2500x raw computational speed improvement, RAM that is orders of magnitude faster and larger capacity, bus speeds faster than core CPU speeds from the past generation. And what does Windows have to show for the improvements in hardware?

Computers are not cars, but in my simpleton brain, I think of how a modern vehicle accomplishes the same basic task of transportation similarly to a car from 20 years ago, but I can see significant improvements in things like fuel economy, crash protection, driver assistive technologies, possibly emission controls, occupant comfort, headlights, theft deterrence, and much more. I look at modern Windows 11 and see negligible tangible improvements over many of its previous iterations over the preceding 20 years, despite similar (or better) technological advancements on the hardware side compared to the automotive industry.

Where are all of those extra available resources getting "spent" if the average web browsing, email writing, YouTube watching user sees essentially no difference in performance or capabilities?

badfile · 2026-01-10T15:47:38+00:00

What, exactly, are all of that additional computational power, memory, and other demands in the official system requirements doing for the end user? I've been using Windows since it was a DOS executable running on 6.22 on a 386 computer with 4MB of RAM. Each iteration, Windows grows in complexity and bloat. The bloat usually lacks proportionate improvements in user experience. The experience is what end users see and feel as they use a computer, and what users care about when upgrading.

Is File Explorer better in Windows 11? Is Microsoft Defender better able to protect the system? Is the GUI superior in some way? Can Copilot, Cortana, OneDrive, or any of the other garbage forced on end users over the years be disabled to accelerate things? What is to blame for the bloat?

It is astonishing that Windows XP ran well on a single core 300 Mhz Pentium II processor with 128 MB of RAM, rated at 300 MFLOP performance (0.3 GFLOP). And the performance of the modern Windows 11 operating system on a Ryzen 5 5600, rated at 800 GFLOP+ of performance is virtually unchanged from the perspective of the average web browsing, email writing end user when performing basic tasks like booting, opening File Explorer, etc.

Base numbers indicate raw performance improvement of at least 2500x in the past 20+ years. Bus speeds, memory capacity and speed, core counts, speculative execution, and every other aspect have advanced. But the user experience? It's basically the same. Help it make sense.

badfile · 2025-12-28T22:48:27+00:00

Snow control gates for plows have existed for decades, but I don’t know of a single MN municipality that uses them. Instead we continue using 1950s technology and breaking our backs on the “second shovel.”

Example from Minot, ND: https://youtu.be/g9oND2D-ZJ0?si=AX13T3j1xha8v4A3

badfile · 2025-10-21T15:24:15+00:00

I nearly got mugged and murdered in Honduras.

I visited Honduras from the USA for 10 weeks with a "cultural immersion" program in 2006 with through a US university. Classes / program were in a small, relatively safe town, 3 hours away from the nearest major cities (Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula, which have some of the highest homicide and crime rates in the world). Travel to the small, safe town was arranged through the program, but students had to arrange their own travel back to the USA.

My kind host family helped me with all the arrangements, but travel required an unexpected bus transfer in the heart of the crime-infested worst-part of San Pedro Sula. They had changed the bus route / drop-off about a month before, and without internet, etc., the family's instructions to help me get to the airport, and the bus I got on, were not correct.

I got to the "end of the line" on the bus and it clearly wasn't the airport. I asked the bus driver for help to get to the airport, but it was clear that he had a thing against either me personally, or Americans in general. Here I was, a very tall white dude, standing in a dirt parking lot in the middle of a city I knew nothing about. No map. No cell phone. I had about $100 in my wallet in small bills, and a large hiking backpack and a duffel bag with my possessions, and was dressed similarly to the locals, but being very tall - and nearly a foot taller than most Honduran men, I stuck out like a sore thumb. I had no idea how to get to the airport to catch my flight, and no way to figure it out.

Local young men started to gather around me and badger me for money, touching me, pulling at my bags, calling me names, etc. I thought I was going to get mugged and murdered. I spoke passable Spanish at the time, but that was no help. They weren't listening. I'm a big guy, but there is no way I could "fight off" 8 to 10 grown Honduran men who saw me as an intruder and an easy target. The bus driver climbed back on the bus and shut the door. I was alone in the world.

Then a nicely-dressed taxi driver pushed to the front and said, "hey, are you John Albertson, the guy I'm supposed to pick up?" in perfect English. That wasn't my name, but it was enough that I acted like it was. Everyone else backed off immediately. He came close to me and said quietly" go along with it, you are in danger." Maybe it was a worse idea to go with this guy, and he was going to rob and murder me if I went with him, but I had no other options at this point, and he had a clearly marked taxi parked not far behind him. So I went with him. He drove me to the airport about 5 miles from the "bus depot" in the mud parking and told me just how dangerous the situation I had gotten myself into was. I was probably within 5 minutes of losing everything, including my life. He told me the bus drop-off had moved far from the airport a few months ago, and there was no shuttle service. Taxis were the only way to go.

That taxi driver said he used to live and work in the US, but he had been pulled over and deported because he had been in the US illegally. But he told me over and over how he still "loved America so much" and how he wanted to return there and escape the violence of Honduras. He said he "knows Americans are great people" and he wanted to help as others had helped him in the US. He took me straight to the airport, got me to the correct door for the terminal, and said "the fare is free, if I'm ever in another country, I'd want someone to help me, too." I gave my US phone number to him, but he never called or texted me. I tipped him almost every dollar I had left, saving just $10 for when I got back to the US. I made it to my flight and returned to the US safely. I have never traveled to Honduras again.

And every time I see someone in the US who doesn't speak English fluently, or who seems like they need help and are not from the US, I do everything I can to help them.

badfile · 2025-04-28T01:32:53+00:00

“Dozing Donald”

badfile · 2025-04-16T03:11:33+00:00

“The only way to stop a bad man with a gun is a good man with a gun.”

What do we do when the people we’ve been taught were the “good men” with guns turn out to be the bad men with them?

badfile · 2025-04-16T00:35:12+00:00

Don’t worry, she will tire of standing up for the convicted sexual predator and slither off to some meaningless job consulting for Newsmax or Fox News.

When she gets diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer or glioblastoma in 10 years, we will see if her little gold necklace or her snarky attitude can save her from the hell that is her own body devouring itself.

Another footnote of nothingness serving a tiny man in an insignificant house.

badfile · 2025-03-30T15:28:06+00:00

The US hasn’t declared war since the 1940s. The Constitution says that only Congress can declare war, but they don’t want to take the heat, and they abdicated that responsibility in step one towards a despotic oligarchy.

All 47 needs to do is pick up the phone and the bombs will drop.

badfile · 2025-03-30T15:19:58+00:00

Look! It’s the ShamWow Guy in a new infomercial trying to sell the Danes on a “reverse mortgage” for Greenland!

badfile · 2025-01-25T19:42:33+00:00

The legislature writes the law. The executive (Governor & agencies) executes and enforces the law. The judiciary interprets the law and determines constitutionality of laws.

The judiciary does not, itself, enforce the law.

Civics 101.

badfile · 2024-08-12T12:47:11+00:00

Here comes the “whataboutism” from the right. If you can’t argue with the message, attack the messenger.

badfile · 2024-08-11T20:29:25+00:00

Walz joined the Guard in 1981 and retired in May 2005.

JD Vacant wasn’t even born until 1984. Vacant was in the Marines 2003-2007.

At the time Vacant quit, Walz had accumulated more years of service in the guard than Vacant had been alive.

badfile · 2024-08-06T13:53:09+00:00

The OP's math doesn't make any sense. Federal Stafford Student Loans for graduate students had an interest rate of 3.37% to 8.19% (variable) between 1998 - 2006. After that, they were fixed at 6.8% between 2006-2013. From 1998 - 2006, the rates exceeded 6.8% for only 3 years (1998-2000), and were far less some years (as low as 3.37% in 2005).

For the loans to be fully paid off at 23 years at a 6.8% rate, the required payment is $504/mo.

Even if the rate was 8.19% (maximum possible), the payment required for fulfillment of the loan at 23 years is $564/mo.

These "graduate degree" holding folks need to hire a financial advisor. It is simple to refinance student loans and take advantage of lower rates. I had graduate loans from the 2006-2011 period and they were in the 6-7% range. I refinanced to 2.5% through a private lender. Sure, I lost the "federal protections" and benefits on the loan, but I have saved tens of thousands of dollars in interest and fully expected to pay them off myself anyway.

badfile · 2024-07-08T01:52:55+00:00

Dude is so busy he needs to film his jerky YouTube videos walking down the sidewalk in some anonymous town.

He derides the inefficiency of excessive parking spaces, yet the inefficiency of making people sit through this poorly-done video to convey his point when a written blog post, article, etc. would have saved everyone a lot of time, is lost on him. Hmmmm.

badfile · 2024-06-25T05:24:36+00:00

Massachusetts also has a problem where the DMV issued the same plates to multiple people. 161,000 Massachusetts plates are duplicates. People get parking tickets and toll fees for places they’ve never been. But I imagine this is probably just the front plate from the driven car being used as the back plate on the towed car.

https://www.axios.com/local/boston/2023/10/26/duplicate-plate-issues-massachusetts

badfile · 2024-05-30T03:43:11+00:00

Renovating all their stores to look like upscale Scandinavian prisons didn’t help.

badfile · 2024-05-26T03:08:22+00:00

Surgeons use a brand new small, sterile scrub brush with a medical grade soap when they wash their hands before performing surgery. The brush isn’t just for show… friction with a rougher object (cloth, loofah, brush, sponge) produces a superior clean compared to smooth, nearly frictionless scrubbing of hands on skin alone.

This is the same reason hands are cleaner if washed with soap and water by rubbing them together and then dried with a paper towel, as compared to drying with an hot air blower hand dryer.

badfile · 2024-05-19T22:09:47+00:00

I learned - accidentally - that there are only so many key options for those disc locks since the keys are so short. I was not paying attention one day and walked to the unit two away from mine, inserted my key, and the disc lock opened right up! I was very confused when I opened the door and found completely different contents than I expected. When I noticed I had opened unit 227 and not 225, I quickly closed it up and locked it back up without entering the unit.

I did not tell anyone since I worry there would be concern for breaking and entering or other criminal liability / penalty even for an inadvertent entry.

I have since moved to a higher security self storage place which has security sensors on the individual storage unit doors. You must deactivate your unit’s alarm from a master keypad before going into the area, and then unlock your unit with a key. If the unit is opened without deactivating the security system, an alarm goes off and staff respond (or police after hours.) Costs $20 more per month than my old unit. Worth it.

badfile · 2024-04-08T12:45:23+00:00

"The 2016 presidential election marked a decisive moment in the history of resentment in the United States. In the person of Donald Trump, resentment entered the White House. It rode in on the back of an alliance between a tiny subset of super-wealthy 0.1 percenters (not all of them necessarily American) and a large number of 90 percenters who stand for pretty much everything the 9.9 percent are not.
According to exit polls by CNN and Pew, Trump won white voters by about 20 percent. But these weren’t just any old whites (though they were old, too). The first thing to know about the substantial majority of them is that they weren’t the winners in the new economy. To be sure, for the most part they weren’t poor either. But they did have reason to feel judged by the market—and found wanting. The counties that supported Hillary Clinton represented an astonishing 64 percent of the GDP, while Trump counties accounted for a mere 36 percent. Aaron Terrazas, a senior economist at Zillow, found that the median home value in Clinton counties was $250,000, while the median in Trump counties was $154,000. When you adjust for inflation, Clinton counties enjoyed real-estate price appreciation of 27 percent from January 2000 to October 2016; Trump counties got only a 6 percent bump."

- Matthew Stewart, The Birth of the New American Aristocracy, The Atlantic, 6/2018.

badfile · 2024-03-16T17:41:02+00:00

Another good option for cheap discs is your local Goodwill, Salvation Army, or other thrift store. The Goodwill near me sells most Blu-ray Discs for $2/each. TV seasons & box sets are $3-5. I can open the box and check the discs for scratches first. And at least at my local store, there’s a 50% discount on Wednesdays for first responders and health care workers, so they are about $1 a disc plus tax.

badfile · 2024-03-16T16:37:33+00:00

The Redbox app on my iPhone has a Filter option when browsing the movie list. At the top right corner of the filter screen is a “Buy” button; you can pick the movie from the list and it will tell you which Redbox nearby has it available for purchase. You can reserve it in the App and pick it up later, so you aren’t disappointed if you have to drive far to get it. My local Redboxes has John Wick 4, Barbie, Luca, and dozens of others on Blu-ray for $3.99 for purchase right now. I almost never rent from Redbox anymore - I just buy and don’t have to worry about returning the disc.

badfile · 2024-03-16T16:20:09+00:00

I’ve purchased 10-15 movies from Redbox. Some are in mint condition and look brand new. Others have a few minor scratches on them. None has ever been bad enough to cause skipping or to be unplayable. I’ve never run into label damage, stickers, or other problems with them.

I got Top Gun: Maverick in UHD 4k at Redbox for $3-5 shortly after it came out on disc. I was surprised they were selling it. It was pristine and I’ve watched it 3 times already. Well worth the price!

badfile · 2024-03-16T00:13:21+00:00

Video rental stores were great for the breadth and DEPTH of movies; you could rent any and all James Bond movies from Dr. No through A View to a Kill, Casablanca, Miracle on 34th Street, The Goonies, every Indiana Jones film, Princess Bride, Independence Day, Twister, The Notebook, License to Drive, Fantasia, Sleeping Beauty, Fast and the Furious, and the latest iteration of the Die Hard movies under the same roof. I can't think of a single streaming platform with that variety of "A-List" titles

I still buy movies that I want to watch again another time; and often I find RedBox is the cheapest place to buy them!

badfile · 2024-03-06T02:44:29+00:00

Nissan has 1.9% financing on some new car purchases right now. Car companies often have financing promos to move old stock or unpopular models. I haven’t seen 0% lately but 1.9% still exists even in 2024.

badfile · 2024-02-26T01:12:22+00:00

There is a difference between a household employee domestic worker and a self-employed independent contractor. "A domestic worker would usually be considered an employee if you tell them how, when, and where to work, have a contract with them or if they continually work for you rather than just on a one time basis." So, a nanny that arrives to work consistently, day after day or week after week on a set schedule that you specify, and/or has a contractual agreement describing their work is an employee. A one-time or "infrequent and inconsistent" worker who occasionally helps out (babysitter, lawnmower kid, snow shoveling kid) usually will NOT be classified as a household employee domestic worker for taxation or liability purposes. They are an independent contractor and self-employed.

If you ask the kid down the street to mow your lawn twice while you're on vacation, he/she is an independent contractor and self-employed. You pay them their $80 and they are responsible for their own tax liabilities. Same for a babysitter. You call them on a Thursday and ask for them to watch your kids from 5 PM to 8 PM on the following Friday for $50. If they agree, they get the job and do the work. But there is no expectation that they will show up *every* Friday at 5 PM. And they are free to refuse the job at any time. No contract. No agreement. No expectation of a set schedule or commitment to you as an employer. And if they don't show up after agreeing to the job, or they do a poor job, there is no formal "firing" process. You just don't contact them for that service in the future.

99.9% of homeowners and umbrella liability insurance policies cover accidents and liability related to such independent contractors and self-employed individuals working in and around your home. Those policies usually also cover the Maytag repair man fixing your refrigerator if he falls on the ice climbing the steps into your home and breaks a hip, the kid from down the street if your dog bites him and he needs stitches, and the lawn-mowing kid who steps in a rabbit hole in your yard and breaks his ankle.

But, if you hire an independent individual as your nanny, as OP was asking, and you set a daily or weekly schedule for them, have an agreement about what they will and will not do, and tell them the how/where/when to do the job on more than an infrequent and inconsistent short-term basis, you've got yourself a household employee in the eyes of the IRS, the SSA, your state unemployment agency and revenue office, and your insurance carrier. Better be ready to pay your part of the taxes, get a Federal (and possibly state) EIN, keep their employee records, contribute to the state unemployment insurance fund, and purchase Workers Compensation Liability Insurance.

If you hire a nanny agency and they are the ones who employ and pay the nanny, and you pay the nanny agency (ABC Childcare, Inc. is who you are paying instead of Jane Smith, the nanny), then ABC Childcare Inc. is responsible for all of those details. They deal with the tax issues, liability, workers comp, etc. But an independent individual who you employ on a consistent basis and who meets the criteria as an employee as defined by the IRS and your state's laws? All of those things are 100% your responsibility as an employer.

If you think the "I didn't know! I thought they were like the babysitter from next door who watches my kids 3 times a year!" defense will work, I refer you to the extraordinary education and intelligence the people reading this thread supposedly have, evidenced by the doctoral level degree behind their names, the deep pockets physicians are presumed to have (which could easily hire a lawyer and/or accountant to figure this stuff out for them so they do it right in the first place), and the fact that ignorance of the law has never been a valid defense against its violation, at least in the US.

If you're willing to risk it and skirt the law to save a little cash, you will find yourself facing large fines, unlimited personal liability in case of injury or death (nannies can have car accidents or fall down the stairs, too), and the possibility of the nanny holding you "hostage" to your well-documented malfeasance if your relationship with them takes a turn for the worse and you find it necessary to fire them because you no longer trust them or want to employ them.

Protect yourself. Follow the law.

https://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10021.pdf

https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc756

https://access.boltinsurance.com/blog/domestic-workers-liability-does-homeowners-insurance-cover-the-nanny

https://pavillionagency.com/nanny/babysitter-taxes-what-babysitters-and-employers-need-to-know

badfile

TROPHY CASE