We might have a different definition of issue.. I think 100% compatibile working would be launching bloatware installed by the manufacturer. I'm happy not to have the pavlovian training that may some day cause me to click one of these things on someone's windows machine.
I think it's more of the buttons perform specialized tricks to launch bloatware in Windows.
Some of the issue here is the keys themselves have almost no standardization, even across models. Hell, possibly in the same model sometimes. Some backend windows driver captures these signals via a 50 mile long series of if statements that make grown men weep when viewed. This later can mean your totally working fix for the kernel doesn't actually work on a 1/3rd of that fleet of laptops.
> I think it's more of the buttons perform specialized tricks to launch bloatware in Windows.
The linked article is discussing play/pause buttons as well as a "mode-switch" button that allows the play/pause button to have a second function. I do not understand how any of these regular functions become bloatware in your estimation.
> Some of the issue here is the keys themselves have almost no standardization, even across models.
There is actually widespread standardization, which is why many important keys work by default. Laptops sometimes have buttons to disable the internal wifi or adjust the keyboard brightness. These keys are less universal, but still hard to categorize as bloatware.
> ome backend windows driver captures these signals via a 50 mile long series of if statements that make grown men weep when viewed.
I don't know any grown men who would weep when viewing this. I'm confused that you do not like a simple solution (if statements, which a computer has zero problems following precisely even if it is complex to you) nor the complex solution ("bloatware")
> This later can mean your totally working fix for the kernel doesn't actually work on a 1/3rd of that fleet of laptops.
Most devices used in fleets are well-supported in linux after a few years, specifically because of users like the linked article who spend time making buttons worked when pressed.
Yep! It's basically just a button that tells the OS "open the system calculator"
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I looked it up, the Human Interface Devices usage "Consumer Control" code assigned to "Application Launch - Calculator" is 0x0C0192 or 0x192
This keypress is sent as a scancode/keycode, not an ASCII character. On Windows, this opens calc.exe by default, but you can change which app opens in response to the calculator key by editing the media key mappings in the Registry
You can obviously map arbitrary key codes however you want on a custom OS and have extremely little fear of someone having embedded nonsense down to the bios.
On windows many of these laptop buttons were added like the Yahoo browser bar to specifically work with bloatware that might go on to make a meaningful action for non malicious software as well as what it is really for.
I prefer not to be in the habit of pressing footguns given that I might occasionally be placed in front of a consumers windows laptop that no one cleaned.
> I prefer not to be in the habit of pressing footguns given that I might occasionally be placed in front of a consumers windows laptop that no one cleaned.
If you're this anxious about security, you might not want to be anywhere near a Windows machine.
I think they're trying to say avoiding a Windows computer is about as difficult as avoiding an automobile, and potentially just as fatal.
I think if they're honestly not being hyperbolic, they should find a less technical career or hobby. If you're afraid of flying, don't join the Air Force.
I'm not sure if there is a word for people who choose high risk activities because they have less fear, because I'm not a coroner.. Perhaps because I'm not sure I have a healthy enough fear of death.
If you examine the stats with the assumption that you could be one who dies early and probably won't take up opioids then there is some logical reasoning to do about your relationship with cars and death. "Mistaking" that for fear is a defense mechanism.
The situation of the worse is better crowd and computer security increasingly looks like one of these things that I don't want to apply such a defense mechanism to.
Linux has not really gotten us closer to eliminating Windows yet it has eliminated a lot of the other approaches to eliminating Windows. Maybe it is only on par with the escooters that can now run me down on the sidewalk but don't seem to have reduced my risk from cars.
> I'm not sure I have a healthy enough fear of death.
You seem to have a very healthy fear of other things, like drivers or scooters running you over, and media buttons on computers launching life-altering software. I'm betting your fear of death might not be healthy, but possibly unhealthy in the sense you're spending your life worrying about things that... well, likely aren't gonna happen to you.
No external compass, something the group views as (or probably unavoidably knows to be) dangerous. Overcoming the fear of it and then belittling those who haven't completed the same process. Psychologists call that the normalization of deviance. A commercial airline pilot has the external compass in your questionable aviation example.
You don't want a group with initial success with the left, right left and so much enjoyment from the sense of fulfillment in social deviance process that they think they can take over everything.
When did every mundane choice became a life-or-death calculation for you? Media buttons aren't footguns. Scooters aren't assassins.
The gap between reasonable caution and this kind of hypervigilance isn't wisdom, it's self-imposed paralysis.
Running pedestrian safety and keyboard shortcuts through the same catastrophic framework is a system that's eating itself - every interaction becomes a referendum on survival.
When people point out that you aren't serving yourself with this worldview, you seem to take the disagreement as proof that others just don't see what's coming.
That's not living... that's white-knuckling through existence, mistaking the grip for control.
Maybe you won't find an issue as simple as fixing a button, though.