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Comment by TonyTrapp | Hacker News Reader

You know, I wouldn't even mind about telemetry in the calculator if that would have told them that I activate Programmer Mode a whole lot through the Alt+3 shortcut, and that my muscle memory of 20 years was completely ruined by them moving the Programmer Mode to Alt+4 for GUI consistency (after they added a new Graphing Mode that they wanted to stick right next to the Scientific Mode).

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Oh, there is a graph mode?

Nevermind, I just crashed it with "sin(x)sin(y)<0"

Microsoft doing in 2021, what Apple did in 1999.

(Microsoft PowerToys for XP had a graphing calculator but it doesn't support inequalities.)

I coincidentally had to fire up Sheepshaver recently so I've got it on hand. I put that inequality in the MacOS 8 Graphing Calculator and it gave me a nice looking checkerboard. Except I had to write it as "sin(x)sin(y)<0" or else it would think I meant "sin(xsin(y))<0", which is pretty itself.

I was going for sin(x)sin(y)>0.1, but I never got that far with the Windows one. Here it is in Desmos, you can move the slider:

https://www.desmos.com/calculator/izui2rwylh

If they had used that telemetry to realise that maybe just maybe people tended to use the same mode and it might be an idea to store it and reapply it on launch then I could see a point to the telemetry. But they aren't even using it to solve the problems their users have, it is just data collection for collections sake if the applications aren't improving!

It always has stored the last used mode here. Does it not do that for you? Smells like a bug if it doesn't.

If only we had some sort of telemetry to identify this possible bug and address it...

Do you suppose loyalty card telemetry is used to improve the customer's shopping experience?

Or do you suspect it might possibly be used for other purposes?

At least loyalty cards give something in exchange, a discount, a free item etc.

Software telemetry only gives us headaches

Side note about the Alt-1/2/3/4 shortcuts in calculator - does anyone else find that they only work sporadically? I just tried it a bunch of times now and got maybe 50-60% success rate on it actually triggering the mode switch.

Same, I usually press them 2-3 times to make sure they work.

It's not just those shortcuts. There is a weird keyboard focus bug where it gets confused if you use both the mouse and the keyboard.

Good god, I never knew about the date calculator option. To add years, months or days to a date there are three drop downs with the values 1 to 999, why on earth is it done this way?

SpeedCrunch is one of the first programs I install on a new machine, probably just after Everything, WizTree and Unlocker.

Often "telemetry" is collected just because it's possible, the more the merrier, rarely is it used to actually improve the product.

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