Dear Reg readers. I want Metro tiles to replace all icons in Windows. Is this a good idea?

CoTW UX. Two little letters that cause so much angst, frustration and passion to spill over. Especially if someone suggests that tiles are a feature of Windows which should be extended over everything.

Our beloved readers, full of peace, love and goodwill towards their fellow internet users, were really very unimpressed with the hapless fool who dared suggest that Windows' hated tile interface should replace icons throughout the Microsoft OS:

Microsoft should replace icons with tiles fully. I would like to have tiles which can be resized and can look like simple icons (but yet display some info) when "minimized", or display more information when set at different sizes.

Why not having a mail or messagin app tile showing you incoming messages? Why not tiles informing you about an application running tasks and status? Why not an "icon" whose info displayed can be customized?

Icons are a relic of the past, when computers struggled to display simple bitmaps fast enough. Now even the less powerful graphic cards has no issue with simple 2D graphics - it's time to make app access "icons" something more that static bitmaps...

Thus we award this week's coveted Wooden Twig of Fail to silver-badged 'tard LCS. Facepalms all round!

A strong contender for the new category of "unreasonably reasonable commentary" was the level-headed Magnus_Pym, who (sort of) justified the cops' actions as so:

This is the classic nutter in box problem. The box is opaque but thin walled. They can't see him, he can't see them but anyone approaching the box is vulnerable. The door opens outwards even if he isn't armed he could still batter someone attempting to open the door or throw shit or what ever. If he is armed he could shoot out at random at any time there is no protection in the area for police or civilians.

What should they do if he doesn't want to come out? It's either a siege or a shoot out. OR some novel approach like this. I think they did OK: the kicking was a bit OTT but no-one ending up in hospital or the morgue.

Which puts a new perspective on what seemed like a bad student prank carried out in the wrong place at the wrong time.

In other commentary this week, jelaft pitched into a thread on Bluetooth speakers with a subtle dig...

"My music tastes run more towards jazz, classic rock, and neoclassical music"

Taste? It doesn't mean what you think it means :-)

... which led to a full-blown Latin-off, led by dogged...

Yes it does. de gustibus non est disputandum.

Or in English - "criticizing the taste of others only means you're a dick".

... and culminating in a knowledge of Latin which your correspondent won't even attempt to describe as he is, frankly, not worthy.

@dogged

The "est" is superfluous - perhaps you haven't read much Tacitus?

Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes.

In other news, George Clooney got married to Amal Alamuddin this week. And to preserve the sanctity of their special day integrity of their exclusive picture contracts with various sleb mags, Mr C issued all guests with burner phones and banned them from bringing their own mobes. Our very own Mr C had this to say...

Is it just me that's nostalgic for the old days where we had 1 telephone and it was sitting at home connected to the wall through a cable.

The only way to share your pictures was to lug a album to the neighbors and show them. A "like" consisted of having a good time over a glass of coffee or beer.

aaaagh those were the times

Which not only the Great Register Tardmangling Device enjoyed, but it seems a good 25 of you, at the time of writing, enjoyed too. By the way, would you mind passing the Werther's Originals? Thanks awfully.

This week's winner of Comment of the Week

And finally, it wouldn't be CoTW without the award of the Golden Vulture Dropping of Hilarity. Commenting on the news that aptly-named EU top cop Troels Oerting thinks encryption-by-default on mobes helps terrorists, Brent Longborough said:

Just to give Troels Oerting a helping hand, here are a few more things that terrorists and paedophiles might occasionally use, and should, therefore, be banned:

• Cars and petrol
• Refrigerators
• Police uniforms

• and, last but not least,

• Common sense

We approve of this message and wholeheartedly endorse it with the award of the coveted Golden Vulture Dropping. Congratulations Brent!

Yet it wouldn't be complete without this fine addition from TheMole:

You missed a few things:

• Writing in abbreviations or code on pieces of paper
• Hiding things and not telling the police where they are
• Making plans as a group face to face in locations where there is no-one to listen
• Making plans in your head and not telling the police

Indeed. Making plans in your head without telling the police is clearly incitement to terrorism! Or not. ®

LATE EXTRA

bar Moustache weighs in with a statistical observation:

@Matt Bryant

In your 13 posts (thus far) on this thread, you've garnered 16 upvotes and 84 downvotes. That gives you an approval rating of 19.04%.

Give it a rest, mate.

We, like the BBC, present this without comment.