wow, what a neet idea...21 years ago...

I just saw a commercial for a "feature" of Windows 7, where one can easily put two windows side-by-side.

Here's a little thing you can try:

• open my computer
• open my documents
• open at least 2 other explorer windows such that they all end up as a single item in your task manager bar
• now go to that item and right-click
• see "tile horizontally" and click it

(you can also do it by opening up a number of MS Word or Notepad instances)

yeah, you already have the feature, just a little inconvenient since it doesn't kick in until you get enough items together to form a "group".

that basic layout feature, cascade, tile vert, tile horiz - has been around since Windows 2.0.  We used to fidget with it on the demo machines they had set up in the school bookstore @ JMU, as besides solitaire (this was before minesweeper), it was the only useful thing to do with them at the time.

the only thing that has changed is now that almost every (new) monitor is widescreen, the stupid 21 year old feature of automatically tiling windows next to each other actually is useful for a change.

so for one rare moment, Microsoft was actually ahead of the game rather than 2 years behind it.  good for them.

sheesh, what a crybaby...

Plushenko: Lysacek not a champion without quad | NBC Olympics:

"You can't be considered a true men's champion without a quad," the 27-year-old told Russian state television RTR.

Lysacek did not attempt a quadruple jump, considered the most difficult in figure skating, in either Tuesday's short or Thursday's free programs, instead wowing the judges with artistry and exquisite footwork.

"For someone to stand on top of the podium with the gold medal around his neck with just doing triple jumps, to me it's not progress, it's a regress because we've done triples 10 or even 20 years ago," Plushenko said.

Attention spoilsport: if triples are so "20 years ago", you should have nailed them.

Instead, we 1) got to see you wobble on them most of your attempts, and 2) see all of them in the first 2 minutes of your act, watching you prance around for the last.

With Evan, we got to see 1) very clean triples with only one wobble and no hack-landings, and 2) almost a third of them in the last half of his show, when others by exhaustion were dropping to doubles or falling.

In short: you kept your stuff easy by keeping it up front before you got tired, and still wobbled them, while he kept consistently difficult and good throughout the routine. If triples are the basics now and the quad the distinctiveness, then nail your triples before thinking having one flashy move is the decider.

[to give Plushenko some credit, it was a LONG night, and I think he'd have done better if he wasn't going last. He had to keep going through the routine all night on solid ground (worse: concrete) to keep his legs warm, and that certainly would be exhausting to them no matter how much went into automatic once on the ice. His recovery at the poorly launched triples was impressive, but they shouldn't have been poorly launched, and wouldn't have been if he hadn't had to wait so long to go on.]

followup

Figure skating controversy much ado about nothing?:

But when Plushenko suggests judges can “arrange” a high placement, Barton begs to differ. He said the system cannot change a judge’s intent, but it can certainly minimize the impact one judge has on any program. Nine judges place marks in the system, two scores are randomly eliminated, then the highest and lowest of the remaining seven marks are eliminated. Technical specialists are also involved in assessing the levels of program elements and contribute to the final mark.

so my idea was incorporated into the system - ditch the highs and lows, but in addition this implies random dropping as well, which i'm not as much of a fan of. random dropping out of 9 has too big an impact.  no scientist or statistician would tell you that random dropping of samples yields better results.

there are judges who specifically look at the exactness of the technique - was a triple-something really a triple, etc, but otherwise, the main judges are just as they were before, looking at both technical and artistic.