Took a few years after Windows 11 was released, but FWIW you can now have a taskbar item for each window. It's in the Taskbar Settings -> Taskbar behaviors -> "Combine taskbar buttons and hide labels".
I also waited until that was an option, it was a total deal-breaker for me. But it's working quite nicely now.
If you enjoy this essay, you might also enjoy another classic, "Typing the technical interview"[0] by Aphyr (a.k.a. Kyle Kingsbury, the person behind Jepsen[1] distributed systems tests.)
“Magic numbers.” You are, after all, a witch. “Every class begins with a babe, in a cafe.”
I like writing that is still fun and interesting to read even when you don't understand what is being done, and then if you do understand what is being done, it's even more entertainingly weird.
In my experience, the two that really matter are J1772/CCS1 and NACS (Tesla). There's a scattering of CHADeMO, but I haven't yet seen a Level 3 DC charger that has CHADeMO only - the cabinet also has a CCS1 plug.
Most (all?) manufacturers will be moving to NACS in the next few years. Luckily, J1772/CCS1 and NACS are protocol-level compatible, so adaptors are relatively cheap and easy to make.
The remaining incompatibilities are commercial/business decisions (e.g. Telsa opening up the Supercharger network to other manufacturers).
EDIT to clarify: I'm combining J1772 and CCS1 because there aren't any cars that have one but not the other. CCS1 starts with J1772 and adds a couple extra pins for DC fast charging (Level 3).
I'm guessing that 7 comes from splitting J1772 from CCS1. It sort of makes sense, I guess. There are even a few EVs with J1772 but not CCS1 (eg, the early Chevrolet Bolt without the DCFC option).
I agree with you, though. Splitting it out is weird at this point. It'd be a bit like pointing at all the different grades of gasoline and saying filling gas cars is hard. 87 octane, 89 octane, 92 octane, e-85 (try explaining the difference between the 85% ethanol and octane to people for some real fun), race gas, 100LL, ethanol free in several octanes. And that's not even getting into oil viscosities. Of course, the real world isn't hard at all.
EV standards aren't really hard in the real world either, though there is a little learning curve.
Eh, AC is nice for employers, hotels, RESIDENTIAL. But the shopping center ones are gimmicky. They're like 3.3kW with a 1kW TV next to it. Thanks shell.
Yep, also having issues with Workspace gmail account. The workspace status dashboard doesn't acknowledge anything, but DownDetector certainly seems to indicate an issue.
I use the "Windows" key pretty extensively, including to open the start menu (and then type in a search term, i.e. a program on my computer to launch).
I also use it extensively for "Windows" (operating system) level shortcuts: Win-R to open a run dialog, Win-E to open Explorer, Win-<left arrow|right arrow> to move/resize windows, etc.)
That being said...I use it in basically the same way on Linux, and use the Command (Apple) key on Macs for essentially the same purposes.
I don't think I've ever used the "right click menu" key for anything, though. Most modern Windows keyboards don't include it, or have it hidden behind a manufacturer-specific function key.
Huh. You’re right. Some keyboard have both windows and the menu key, and others have only one menu key. I don’t know if this means Microsoft relaxed their “Made for Windows” standards, or higher profile manufacturers don’t care.
Downdetector's front page[0] seems to indicate issues with other carriers as well - Verizon and TMobile. There are are several other providers showing on the front page, but I think a lot of them are MVNOs on the big three networks.
I’ve had a fiber line for residential internet buried in my yard. At one point it stopped working and a tech was able to pinpoint the exact location that it had a slight kink using a device that measured the reflection. They just dug up that section with hand tools to unkink it.
Though TDRs are in common use for copper cable, too. You send the pulse down the line and get a reflection back. They're a little worse than optical ones because there's more uncertainty of the speed pulses travel down a random network cable than a piece of optical fiber.
They make some really cool in-line OTDRs these days, but the one we use was about $10k I believe and it's had a broken screen for years. Still works if you plug a mouse in!
Does varying twist rate contribute to that uncertainty? I imagine that a cable with a high twist rate is slower because the twist means the individual conductors are longer (maybe just by a couple percent) than one with a lower twist rate. And if the test equipment isn't configured for the pinout scheme being used (A vs B) then it might not even be pulsing a single pair at a time (each pair has a different twist rate) although perhaps that issue is automatically avoided.
> Does varying twist rate contribute to that uncertainty?
Yes, but beyond the effect that you're saying. The distance between conductors affects speed down the cable. Tighter twisting also changes the distance and the amount of dielectric around, which also varies speed of propagation.
These effects can be massive; a typical cat 7 cable has a velocity factor of 80% of the speed of light, varying by a couple of percent; a cat 5e cable more is often more like 65%. If you launch a pulse into a mess of mixed wiring to find out where something is unplugged or cut, you could be off by 20% or more.
Oh yeah, I did that too! I also spent a ton of time adding/making custom boot screens for various versions of Windows (up through XP, at least). Was a lot more interesting than it would be today because those boot splash screens were often up for several minutes (!) while the OS started.
Oh man, I definitely remember doing that with Windows 95 and 98— there was one that had the caption "this is Windows on drugs" with the palette rotation used to animate a bunch of psychedelic paisley.
I also waited until that was an option, it was a total deal-breaker for me. But it's working quite nicely now.