So there I am, working on a computer, and I’m in the updates (the never-ending, interminable updates) and up pops this “ad” (update now or else, sort of thing) saying I can now take this computer to Windows 11.
Ok. Groovy, even. (As they used to say.)
EXCEPT, the way that page works, there are times when it is flashing several times a second and that particular “ad” features a great deal of BLUE.
Is no one at Microsoft aware of the relationship between things that flash several times a second, the color blue and seizures? (And also the color red, and high contrast images and, and, and…)
Here’s the kicker, where MSFT is really at fault: there is no technical reason for that page to have to flash like that. (Note: it doesn’t always flash, but when it does [frequently], it is just about perfectly in that 3 – 4 times a second zone. Nasty.) As a long (long) time programmer I can testify that this is nothing more than sloppy programming, taking the easy solution instead of the correct one(1). Asking the question of a programmer on the witness stand (“was this avoidable,” say) in this case would be like asking a professional gardener if grass is green, and any objection to this testimony would be like the defense claiming, “but it’s Kentucky Blue Grass.”(2)
I am not in favor of law suits. I am in favor of all people and entities(3) acting responsibly, sanely, rationally and with openness at all times to new facts. However… the Corporate Mentality is very rarely these things (occasional exceptions) and the feedback they listen to is two things (and pretty much these two things only): stock value, and law suits.
They don’t try to avoid law suits, by the way (well, a little bit, yes, some here and there), but — as in the Ford Pinto lesson [look up Pinto exploding gas tank, if you don’t know what I mean) — they plan for them, instead. An expected number of law suits are budgeted for in advance. (Disgusting!) This is a part of why medical costs (and lots of other things) in America are so very, very, very, very high: the costs are rigged to absorb an expected number of law suits. And that removes a big piece of the incentive to simply do it right in the first place.
Piffle… Very piffle, even.
A little honest and genuine concern for the customer, who is, after all, far more important that the stock holder, is critical to long term success(4) in any venture. So is a love of your product.
Question to all business owners and producers:
if you would not use your own product exclusively,
if your spouse (or spice) or children would not use
it with pride — or even should not use it —
then why do you make it? Shame on you!
Come on, people! Especially in the computer industry, we KNOW about inducing seizure and how to avoid it. [Look up Pokémon Shock — ポケモンショック, Pokémon Shokku in Japanese — for one simple and shocking example.]
Some body at Microsoft needs a swift kick in the conscience.
NOTE: I am not a medical doctor, I am not a licensed health professional, your mileage has already varied, this website may be hot after heating, there are no user serviceable parts inside this posting, and so on. What I am, though, is a 45 year computer veteran (among other things) who is subject to seizure.
The above is — and even the footnotes below are (and everything else on this website) — all just my opinion. So there…
[30]
(1) When the Windows update system is engaged in certain aspects of its job, the display window / page refreshes every time it updates any piece of information on it. It repaints the entire thing. Which also has that heavy-on-the-blue Windows 11 Ad blanking out (going all white) then filling back in each time, giving us a “flash” in blue. Nasty. Also very sloppy. (Also completely against the Windows Style Guide, too — or would have been back when there was a Windows Style Guide.) Correct procedure is, when updating a particular item displayed in any Window, you update just that item, not the whole thing — unless it is truly necessary, which is very rare. The reason you always do this is that repainting the entire window is wasteful of the computer’s processor time and other resources, and annoying to the user. The only reason to do it, frankly, is laziness — by the programmer or by his management chain. As a long time programmer, I believe that this happened because unreasonable time constraints were placed on making that piece of software work, rather than emphasis on making it work correctly. That’s Corporate think, and why the Computer industry was more successful and more inventive 30 years ago than it is now — before the Corporate Invasion. In this case, it’s even hazardous to the user, because the particular splash screen that (trying to convince you that Windows 11 is ready and a Cool and Nifty thing would be for you the user to click right here now) contains a great deal of Blue, which is very harsh color for the Human nervous system. Look it up. (Blue light consists of higher-energy photons than other colors — high school, even grade-school physics. Deal with it.)
(2) Kentucky Blue Grass is still green, for those of you who don’t know.
(3) “Entities.” Legal entities. Unfortunately, right wing (so called “conservative”) politics in America caused, some while back, corporations to be defined as citizens with the rights of a citizen. Ack! Very nasty. They get the rights, but not the responsibilities. Does Xerox have to sign up for the Draft? Does GM have to have a driver’s license? Can Microsoft as an entity be sent to white-color prison for defrauding its customers? Foolishness… But there it is, hence “entities” in the sentence above.
(4) So is the employee… without customers and without employees, guess what? There is no company. Stock holders are the least important of the three: customer, employees, stock holders. Further the CEO will place himself fourth on that list if he properly realizes his role. Otherwise, he’s just a high-paid leech.