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BananaTrifleViolin

@BananaTrifleViolin@lemmy.world

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BananaTrifleViolin ,

Doesn't really matter if you see the survey or not - valve can validate their data other ways. They easily know how many clients connect from each OS and what proportions as that's fundamental to the client itself. The survey fills in the rest of the data like which kernel, distros, and hardware.

All this would do is maybe weight some of the answers on which flavour of Linux and which hardware is being used in the favour of proactive users. But really good survey data relies on being representative and that is bes achieved by large random samples rather than people saying "count me!"

BananaTrifleViolin ,

Manifest V2 phase out is a big deal, as Google is pushing towards Manifest 3 only. Google's version of Manifest 3 is hobbled by removing WebRequest blocking which breaks privacy and ad blocking tools - an obvious benefit to Google as an Ad and data harvesting company.

Firefox is implementing Manifest 3 with WebRequest blocking, as well as supporting Google's hobbled version declarativeNetRequest to allow compatibility with chrome extensions.

BananaTrifleViolin ,

True but ultimately this is about ownership - we don't own our games. We license them - that is what is lost with Steam and DRM, and moving away from physical media.

GOG is an alternative in that you can download and back up the installers for your games (mostly) but even then do you own your ganes?

BananaTrifleViolin , (edited )

I'm not sure how I feel about this news story.

On the one side, it's good to make sure people are aware of the limitations of secure email providers. However on the other the article almost reads as of this should be a surprise to people?

I use Proton mail and pay for my account. I don't pay for anonyminity - I pay for privacy. They are two very different things.

The article talks about Opsec (operational security) and they're right - if you need anonyminity then don't use your personal apple email as a recovery address. That is a flaw in the user approach and expectations that unencrypted data held by Proton is also "secure". Your basic details and your IP address are going to be recorded and available to law enforcement. Use a VPN or Tor to access the service and use another untraceable email for recovery, and pay via crypto if you want true anonymity. And even then there are other methods of anonymous or untraceable secure email that may be better than Proton mail (such as self hosted).

But for most users like myself, if you're not looking for anonyminity then Proton is fine as is. My email address is my name and I use it to keep my emails secure and not snooped on by Google etc.

Proton advertises itself as private, secure and encrypted. It does not claim to offer anonymity.

BananaTrifleViolin ,

Nope, a car company with no car design team won't be making new models.

Tesla shows what's wrong with capitalism - companies bloat on speculation driven in this case by a show man. Tesla is a house of cards - it squandered it's first-move advantage, the competition are now building better EVs, and it's self-drive technology is a lemon because Elon decided to remove all the essential sensors in his solution to reduce cost.

Meanwhile his competitors are getting licenses to self drive and Tesla have jackshit. Robo-taxis are coming but they won't have the Tesla logo on them.

BananaTrifleViolin ,

Tesla is a massively overvalued stock and has been for a long time. When they announced their recent dire sales, the share price actually rebounded because the clown Mush spouted his usual nonsense about the real value in the company - self drive and robo-taxis - but it's been widely reported for some time that the companies tech is a dud because Musk decided to remove all the expensive components that actually make the technology work. They lost their first-move advantage; their competitors have caught up and surpassed them both on EVs and self-drive tech.

The guy is a joke, the company is a joke.

BananaTrifleViolin ,

Makes sense from a business point of view. Why sell to create a new competitor with the same technology and an impregnable market base in the USA?

Better to force US competition to start from scratch.

BananaTrifleViolin ,

Either TikTok will win in court and overturn the law (possible), be sold (unlikely) or shut down (likely). I can't see TikTok being sold being allowed by China, and even selling part of the business just creates a new global competitor to extend out of the US.

Multiple competitors will appear in the meantime hoping to get the displaced activity. TikTok is hugely profitable and a dominant replacement in the US would make a lot of money. This will be seen as an opportunity to make a lot of money for the winner.

I can see Meta trying to make a TikTok like clone, Google trying to leverage YouTube shorts, and Elon Musk trying to revive Vine at Twitter, plus lots of startups (mostly. American but possibly from other nations) vying to win the audience.

Ironically the more interesting battle may be outside the US - TikTok versus whatever US app comes along.

The deadline is after the US election - this could also all be political grandstanding and the politicians expectation might be that the law won't stand up in court anyway.

BananaTrifleViolin ,

Your emails are.more private in the same sense that if you have a letter with something on it, turning it over means someone can't read it over your shoulder, but they could have read it before it got to you.

Google has access to the contents of your inbox, Proton mail does not. But the protocols are unchanged and unencrypted email is accessible in transit.

So moving to Proton is a definite improvement, particularly as email remains a basic means of communication. But as you say if you wand secure communication then it is very flawed.

BananaTrifleViolin ,

Who is going to pay to post on twitter? Not only has he destroyed what was there but he's stopping any route for growth with new users. Most people won't bother.

He really has managed to destroy that company with his knee jerk decisions.

BananaTrifleViolin ,

The other huge issue is when they confidently tell you incorrect information. If you trust the AI tool you are basically looking at the world through a filter and one that can be wrong.

In a rush for market share these companies have released broken or half baked software.

I worry about a generation of students coming through who don't know the cardinal rule of researching any topic: go to the source. If you're casually goofling a topic that may be impractical but you might at least go to a source you trust (such as Wikipedia, although that is also very flawed approach!).

Chat bots add another layer of error and distance from the source, as well as all the censorship and data manipulation we're seeing.

Admit it: ‘Artificial general intelligence’ may already be obsolete, Expecting OpenAI’s GPT and other large language models to beat humans at thinking like a human might be missing the point. (www.fastcompany.com)

Elon Musk filed a lawsuit in San Francisco’s Superior Court accusing OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, of betraying the startup’s initial commitment to openness, the betterment of society, and lack of profit as a motive. Among other things, Musk’s 35-page complaint argues that OpenAI has violated its original deal to share...

BananaTrifleViolin ,

Yeah absolutely. Even AI as a term has become a crock of shit because it's been latched on to by companies to market their products in the AI the equivalent of the dotcom boom.

Artificial Intelligence was once a sufficient smterm for Artificial General Intelligence. Now any old algorithm is being labelled AI to sell it.

But the terms don't matter - the concept is sound but it's further away than we probably expect because so much crap is being sold to make a quick buck.

Chat-GPT is basically beta software and it is practically useless because it's inaccurate. You can't use a tool in business, government or health are when it can be wrong and worse so confidently wrong. It's an impressive tool but they still haven't got that working well, let alone any further "advances".

And blindly throwing data at LLMs and hoping to stumble on AGI is not going to work - crudely that is the approach of much of the cow boy outfits out there claiming to be innovating in AI. That includes big tech companies who have jumped on the bandwagon over the last 18 months.

BananaTrifleViolin ,

I'm not sure how much better privacy Chromium has; it is "degoogled" by default but that doesn't mean it's necessairly more private.

If you wanted better privacy and control then Librewolf is probably the better option - it is Firefox stripped of the telemetry tools, default google search links (which are minimal in Firefox, just default search engine) and privacy hardened (including HTTPS only & default install of Ublock Origin extension)

BananaTrifleViolin ,

I don't have a Mac but I can offer you a viewpoint: in general it is better to compartmentalise your data and if you're using products by the big tech companies (Apple, Google, Microsoft, Meta etc) then to separate date between them as much as possible. In other words, don't put all your eggs in one basket.

If you're on a Mac, you're in Apple's ecosystem. In some ways they provide better privacy as they're not as dependent on advertising like Google for example, however they do have advertising buisness and are still mining your data and profiling you as it's their business to sell you stuff whether that's more Apple hardware or digital content.

So I personally wouldn't be using all their various apps without knowing in detail what data is going to them. Web browsers, email and calendars are data gold mines, as are anywhere you shop for content such as App stores, music, video etc.

If I were on Apple, I would be using Firefox so as to wall off as much as my data from Apple as possible. I'd also consider Thunderbird for email & calendar to remove Apple from that data trove. I personally also pay for my email service rather than using anything bundled in (i.e. iCloud) - the reason being you're not beholden to one provider longterm and can access and migrate your data on other devices (e.g. not Apple in the case of iCloud).

Apple tries to sell itself as a bastion of privacy. It's not - it's probably a bit better than some of it's competitors but it still is involved in user tracking and selling data to advertisers. They made a fanfare about letting users disable advertiser tracking on iPhones but what they didn't make as much noise about is that they actually built the tracking tools in the first place, and they've been building their advertising business as the services side of Apple is big money (it's app store, it's content etc)

BananaTrifleViolin ,

It's the first expensive iteration of something that could become viable if costs come down as production scales up.

In fairness to Apple, it's a powerful device and is the sort of device VR manufacturers are trying to converging towards. Their's is an all in one unit, with powerful on board processing so it gives high quality VR without tethering. It also has a lot of sensors built in, both negating the need for external sensors and hand control devices.

Compare that to other high end VR, and the competition remains high end tethered devices such as the Valve Index which is an expensive headset, limited to a room with sensors, tethered to a decent gaming PC, and requiring hand controllers to interact with the world. At the other end you have cheaper all-in-one devices like the Quest 2 which try to do what the Vision Pro does to an extent but are too limited techwise due to the price point they're targetting.

A valve index is about £1k, and a decent gaming PC is about £1-2k depending on how high end you go. The Vision Pro is £2.7k ($3.5k, but pre-tax); more expensive and perhaps offering less than the PC would beyond VR but still not crazy far away numbers wise. And it is offering a paradigm shift towards how VR is likely to be in the future.

All the stuff about it being a "new" device type ("spatial computing") is marketing nonsense - this is an AR/VR headset but it is one that's ahead of it's time as an expensive gamble by Apple to take a stake in the future. Expect a Vision Pro 2 in the next year or two with similar power but a lower price, but also I'd expect other manufacturers such as Meta and Valve to be converging on the same type of device from the other direction. But I'd honestly expect it to be more like 5+ years before such devices with similar specs to the Vision Pro are mass market and "affordable". Like, £3k for a headset would be a no to me; but £1.5k for something that did that... that'd be expensive but getting into an affordable luxury for me. And is they were convincing around some of the "spatial computing" type productivity apps missing from game centred VR being a UIP, then it's more like considering a new lap top and a £1.5-2k devices starts becoming a real consideration.

And as an expensive gamble it seems to be paying off. Supposedly 200,000 sold so far at $3.5k a pop - thats $700m in revenue. Even if it's not massively profitable per device, thats a good user base for such an expensive product and hints this could be something that does well as the price comes down. This is well away from mass market appeal, but I can see a trajectory where this becomes affordable as a luxury computing device first before eventually becoming mass market.

[OC] Anyone else insist on using the generic name for all meds? (lemmy.world)

Image: 4 panels organized in a rectangle following a sequential order like a comic strip. The first panel is of a man with a very serious face stating, "Hey man, got any diphenhydramine?" The second panel is a grainy picture of the actor Robert Downey Jr. with a slightly inquisitive face and saying, "What's that?" The third...

BananaTrifleViolin ,

Generic drug names are widely used in the UK and europe - we don't have US style advertising. There are brands but they don't cut through in the same way when generics are so widely known and mandated for prescriptions coming from the NHS too.

Benadryl isn't even a specific drug, it's just a brand with different drugs in different countries (cetirizine in the UK). I'd just say "antihistamine".

Also brand name drugs are largely a scam - pharmaceuticals are heavily regulated and generics are the exact same drug. Save yourself some money, learn the generic names and buy those. Otherwise you're just paying the drugs company for their advertising and the big price mark up for their profit as a "premium" brand.

BananaTrifleViolin ,

There are extensions for that.

In Firefox Consent-o-matic and Ghostry both do a good job in android and Linux/Windows.

I have no idea if they have that on iOS though given Apple forces browser makers to reskin Webkit.

BananaTrifleViolin ,

Yeah, Microsoft is trying to normalise the idea that your own personal email client should be open to them to access and steal your data so they can advertise at you.

Fuck windows and fuck outlook.

Thunderbird is free and entirely private on all platforms (And K9 mail on Android is also maintained by the Thunderbird team)

BananaTrifleViolin ,

Yeah we're in the middle of the idiocy of an AI speculative boom. People will try and bend anything to include AI for attention or to make money, and "journalists" will lap up this crap. Bring on the bust.

BananaTrifleViolin ,

440ml is a UK variant. No one has a confirmed explanation for its existence alongside 500ml.

However 440ml of water would be 0.44kg which is just under one pound imperial weight (0.45kg). Presumably the fluid plus the aluminium can would weight about 1lb which may explain the odd volume measure (given transport costs and possibly even how customs costs may have used to work?).

BananaTrifleViolin ,

This is not shrinkflation.

440ml is a UK variant. No one has a confirmed explanation for its existence alongside 500ml, but it's been around for decades.

However 440ml of water would be 0.44kg which is just under one pound imperial weight (0.45kg). Presumably the fluid plus the aluminium can would weigh about 1lb which may explain the odd volume measure (given transport costs are often by weight and possibly even how customs costs may have used to work?).

BananaTrifleViolin ,

I am using Proton Mail, paid account, after having moved from Gmail.

I like it; it's private and secure, and I like the web interface and the new android app. To use mail clients like Thunderbird you have to install an app called Proton Bridge - it's basically a dedicated VPN to ensure your email communication is kept secure when communicating between their servers and your client. I've had no problems when I tried it on windows, but I did have issues on Linux with the app forgetting my credentials and forcing me to start from scratch; each time it starts from scratch it downloads your whole mailbox which is frustrating. I'm on KDE and I think it's to do with the Kwallet and PGP. It seems to be working now but tbh I use the web interface mainly in linux, and the android app on my phone.

I have no regrets using proton mail, and I would recommend it. I didn't have problems with the old android app, but the new one is good and seems to address other peoples experiences of slowness previously.

BananaTrifleViolin OP ,

This to me sounds like a misuse of DMCA - it's original open source code not stolen code, so the only "infringement" is dubious around whether you can clone a game or if a game belongs to whoever "owns" it. I can see they could have grounds to take the project to court to establish whether their copyright ownership of Wordle prevents anyone making their own version, but using DMCA for independently made code seems like a big overstep. Two corporations (Microsoft and the NYT) making decisions about whether software can be posted, and the poorly thought out DMCA rearing it's head again.

BananaTrifleViolin ,

Yeah the actions of one probably mentally ill person is nothing more than a curio.

Someone using a vaccine 217 times is interesting from a science curiosity point of view but useless when it comes to safety or efficacy. All it tells us is that repeatedly using the vaccine in someone who never had a problem with it didn't cause problems. 1 person taking the vaccine 217 times is useless - 217 people taking the vaccine 1 time tells us much more.

BananaTrifleViolin ,

I can't see the point in that? Certain tools could work fine, but the actual desktop environment? It'd be running in a sandbox and would need to be given access to everything to function presumably. The various tools need to communicate with each other and the X11 or Wayland composite. So the flatpak container would just be overhead with a lot of duplication of system libraries? I'm not even sure it's possible but I don't know enough of the limitations of flatpak.

It's an interesting idea to test and play wth but I can't see it as an actual viable means of distribution.

If you wanted to play with plasma 6 then Virtual box and KDE Neon or Arch would be the way, and would negate the work needed to to get it working via flatpak. So I guess what would be the benefit for anyone to build and test it via flatpak even if for feasible?

BananaTrifleViolin ,

Yeah, this kind of misunderstands what debian is. If you wanted newer bleeding edge stuff you wouldn't be using debian. Debian is all about the stability.

That said, Debian Sid or testing (the bleeding edge system that 13 will come from) may move to 6? Debian 12 was last year so 13 would be in 2025, so it seems likely 6 will make its way into the bleeding edge versions if people really wanted to use it. But there are better options for most end users than using test versions of major distros.

BananaTrifleViolin , (edited )

Trust in AI is falling because the tools are poor - they're half baked and rushed to market in a gold rush. AI makes glaring errors and lies - euphemistically called "hallucinations", they are fundamental flaws which makes the tools largely useless. How do you know if it is telling you a correct answer or hallucinating? Why would you then use such a tool for anything meaningful if you can't rely on its output?

On top of that, AI companies have been stealing data from across the Web to train tools which essentially remix that data to create "new" things. That AI art is based on many hundreds of works of human artists which have "trained" the algorithm.

And then we have the Gemini debacle where the AI is providing information based around opaque (or pretty obvious) biases baked into the system but unknown to the end user.

The AI gold rush is a nonsense and inflated share prices will pop. AI tools are definitely here to stay, and they do have a lot of potential, but we're in the early days of a messy rushed launch that has damaged people's trust in these tools.

If you want examples of the coming market bubble collapse look at Nvidia - it's value has exploded and it's making lots of profit. But it's driven by large companies stock piling their chips to "get ahead" in the AI market. Problem is, no one has managed to monetise these new tools yet. Its all built on assumptions that this technology will eventually reap rewards so "we must stake a claim now", and then speculative shareholders are jumping in to said companies to have a stake. But people only need so many unused stockpiled chips - Nvidias sales will drop again and so will it's share price. They already rode out boom and bust with the Bitcoin miners, they will have to do the same with the AI market.

Anyone remember the dotcom bubble? Welcome to the AI bubble. The burst won't destroy AI but will damage a lot of speculators.

BananaTrifleViolin ,

I get what you're saying, but IBM is not a poster child for what Google or anyone else should be doing. IBM has been an also ran for a very long time; huge in size and very profitable with occasional innovations but a fraction of what it was when it was in its heyday.

IBM stayed at the forefront for so long because the barriers of entry into the computer sector were too high. But in terms of innovation Microsoft demolished IBM, and Google demolished Microsoft. Now Google is just another big incumbent, very profitable but unable to innovate like it used to and instead beholden to shareholders short-termism just like Microsoft and IBM.

The bigger problem is these companies could stifle innovation through sheer scale and market clout, perhaps to a detrimental degree in the US in particular going forward. They try and mop up all the talent and then put them to work in dull areas. For example Google is largely just an advertising company that dabbles in other things now.

Android Microphone Snooping (lemmy.world)

So I had a verbal conversation with a coworker yesterday and now I'm getting fed very specific ads. No possible way it's accidental. I have most of the microphone access to apps limited, I have Google assistant turned off and no VPA setup in my home. I use a Oneplus 9 pro, does anyone have recommendations on how to further root...

BananaTrifleViolin ,

I have 0 apps allowed microphone access all the time.

There is no evidence that phones are snooping on people, but I would say even if unlikely it's a reasonable concern given what companies do get up to.

However it is more likely the ads were being served because of all the other data you're allowing Google to scrape from you all the time rather than the phone mic.

Rather than focusing on the microphone, look at the bigger picture of how your data is being pillaged by Google all the time.

For me, I switched away from Gmail, stopped using their search engine, use Firefox and not Chrome, and don't use their other services where possible. I have android on my phone and use Google maps and Google home. It's still a huge problem but I use that part of the ecosystem for convenience and no other. Similarly on PC I don't use Google for anything where I can avoid it, use Firefox containers to keep Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta data as separate as possible, plus I use Linux and VPN as needed, and lots of privacy extensions in Firefox.

It's possible to minimise your data exposure to the big tech companies, but difficult to severe completely. You could go even further and switch from android to Graphene OS (I have seriously considered this).

I would go by the principle of compartmentalising your data as much as possible and limiting access to snooping eyes. The transition can be hard but once you've done it you get used to using disparate unnonnected services. Like I really don't need or benefit from my email data being connected to my data storage or my search engine; it's a false convenience that benefitted Google only.

BananaTrifleViolin ,

The "solutions" to model collapse - essentially retraining on the original data set - suggests LLMs plateau or deteriorate. Especially without a way to separate out good and bad quality data (or ad they euohemistically try and say human vs AI data).

Were increasingly seeing the limitations and flaws with LLMs. "Hallucinations" or better described as serious errors, model collapse and complete collapse suggest the current approach to LLMs is probably not going to lead to some gone of general AI. We have models we don't really understand that have fundamental flaws and limitations.

Unsurprising that they probably can't live up to the hype.

BananaTrifleViolin ,

Because Apple is not a car maker. Making their own electric car was already pretty weird - buying an auto maker and having to run it would have been a huge distraction.

It would have made more sense for them to partner with another company on the car (maybe they even did?) than start buying and running a whole car company.

You Don’t Need to Use Airplane Mode on Airplanes | Airplane mode hasn't been necessary for nearly 20 years, but the myth persists. (gizmodo.com)

You Don’t Need to Use Airplane Mode on Airplanes | Airplane mode hasn't been necessary for nearly 20 years, but the myth persists.::Airplane mode hasn't been necessary for nearly 20 years, but the myth persists.

BananaTrifleViolin ,

Not if there is a picocell on board - that's one of the major points of the article, including the EU mandating their installing on flights in Europe to enable people to connect.

However I agree with the airlines that lobbied in the US against this. It's going to be a source of air rage - people crammed in a small space do not want to listen to other people yapping loudly on cell phones or video calls. It's simpler to just ban it outright. Although I am sure the airlines also don't want to have to pay for data connections and their air staff be responsible for dealing with irate customers when the connection is out.

But airlines have already started monetising things by making WiFi available on board flights for a fee - that is already opening the door to calls. I suspect we'll end up with it as standard and a fight against exorbitant charges for connecting imposed by airlines.

Maker uses Raspberry Pi and AI to block noisy neighbor's music by hacking nearby Bluetooth speakers (www.tomshardware.com)

Maker uses Raspberry Pi and AI to block noisy neighbor's music by hacking nearby Bluetooth speakers::Roni Bandini is using a Raspberry Pi to power his AI-driven assault against his neighbor's regular 9am reggaeton music.

BananaTrifleViolin ,

The maker shared his project online, he wasn't "caught". The article even links to the project.

BananaTrifleViolin ,

Signal were fools to remove the SMS support from their app. That was a good way to get people in to use the system - they could have insecure SMS chats with those not on signal, and secure signal chats with those on it. The app would warn you when someone didn't have signal and the chat was insecure.

It was a really good "trojan horse" route into people's lives. I was using signal every day and it was easier encouraging others to make the switch because it was a convenient app.

Then the devs removed that and dumped all their users back onto other SMS apps.

Now I have 3 apps - an SMS app, Signal and WhatsApp. I barely ever use Signal now. I want to use it more but so few people I know use it, and it's not the first place people message me from.

Removing SMS support was a huge strategic misstep. They should have been the bridge for people to move from SMS to secure chat.

BananaTrifleViolin ,

PSA: GDPR still applies in law in the UK too; it has not been repealed

BananaTrifleViolin ,

I do wonder how much backup data a site like Reddit keeps. I suspect their back ups are poor as the main focus is staying live and moving forward.

I'd imagine ability to revert a few days, maybe weeks but not much more than that? Would they see the value in keeping copies of every edit and a every deleted post? Would someone building the website even bother to build that functionality.

Also for reddit so much of their content is based around weblinks, which give the discussions context and meaning. I bet there are an awful lot of dead links in reddit and their moves to host their own pictures and videos was probably too late. Big hosting sites have disappeared over time or deleted content, or locked down content from AI farming.

The more I think about it, they were lucky to get $60m/year.

ajsadauskas , to Fuck Cars
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

What can you get to within a 15-minute walk of your house?

A recent YouGov survey asked Americans what they think they should be able to get to within a 15-minute walk of their house.

Of these choices, I can currently walk to all of them from my apartment, aside from a university (no biggie, I'm not currently studying, although there is a Tafe within walking distance), a hospital, and a sports arena.

How many can you get to with a 15 minute walk from your house?

@fuck_cars

BananaTrifleViolin ,

I'm in the UK. I have all except a hospital, movie theatre, university, and sports arena within a 15 min walk of my house. I live in a suburb in a large city (not London).

I can get to a hospital, movie theatre, and a university within 20 mins on a bus. I can get to 3 sports areas in about 30-40 mins on a bus in different directions.

My area is not a 15-min city, but is moving that way. My own street has been split up and blocked to through traffic (which I love), and there is proposal for a pollution tax to dissuade polluting traffic in the city.

But at the moment I cannot realistically commute to work as the public transport capacity is just too low to make it comfortable and safe (I work early and late hours).

I think the concept is great but I suspect they need most of the elements to be in place before they can achieve critical mass and change behaviour. Certainly for me I'm still doing a lot of driving.

BananaTrifleViolin ,

I work in healthcate and use windows, at work and at home if I need to do work related stuff. I don't mind windows at work as it's been configured for the purpose and all the shitty bits are switched off - something Microsoft let's it's business users do. It's a decent operating system when it's set up to do what it needs to do, and I'm very familiar with it from using it since Windows 95.

I used to use windows at home and had Linux for occasional interest. But in the last few years I've moved away from windows and now I'm on Linux as my main driver on multiple devices.

For home users Windows is getting pretty shitty - it steals data all the time with numerous privacy settings you have to set to try and stop it, it tries to force you ads, it tries to force you to use its Web browser, it bundles lots of sponsored apps and when it does a big update it resets alot of your choices on privacy plus reinstalls removed bundle apps. It also throws new "features" at you which take up resources and impact privacy. Like Xbox gaming - I didn't ask for it, I don't want it, stop installing it every year and stop forcing an overlay on my own games.

It's really a chore to use windows now; it feels like a constant battle to make sure it's not intruding on your data and privacy or showing you ads. I now use windows as the exception when there is a specific game that doesn't work in Linux. The rest of the time I boot into Linux, or use a separate work provided Windows device for home working.

I know it's probably a case of "who asked" but I guess I just mean I get that windows can be decent for work related stuff (or necessary) but when it comes to personal stuff it's a bit of a nightmare. And I guess it also comes down to whether the privacy invasion and advertising bothers users. Bothers me a lot, but some people don't seem to care how the customer has become the product.

BananaTrifleViolin ,

Modi is seemingly dismantling Indian democracy under the auspices of hindu nationalism and populism.

BananaTrifleViolin ,

If you actually read his comment he gave a very good reason why using an LLM to make decisions is a bad idea. You may not like the style of his comment but it did have substance.

Ironically, your own comment has style but lacks substance. It's just a moan about other people's comments without actually contributing to the topic. Tbf though, that is also very similar to Reddit.

Because AI and Crypto use so much electricity, what if a law was made that they had to power it with green energy?

Something on the lines of if your company facility is using over X amount of energy the majority of that has to be from a green source such as solar power. What would happen and is this feasible or am I totally thinking about this wrong...

BananaTrifleViolin ,

Problem is energy from the grid is just energy. You'd get crypto companies buying "green" energy leaving the dirty enegery for everyone else. It'd be meaningless.

Ultimately crypto mining is a pointless industry. It benefits the miners financially but doesn't produce anything meaningful, while expending huge amounts of energy and polluting the world as a result. It's also an extremely energy wasteful way to run the infrastructure needed to maintain crypto currencies.

It wouldn't matter if we were in some Nuclear fusion powered utopia with an abundance of energy. But we're not - we're in the middle of a climate crisis and desperately trying to move over to green energy. Growing demands for energy for crypto is countering that.

The real solution is to tax crypto mining - for example tax then on every kWh they use. Regions that entice crypto operations in are chasing fools gold - the costs out weight any local economic benefits of new data centres being built.

Google will no longer back up the Internet: Cached webpages are dead. Google Search will no longer make site backups while crawling the web. (arstechnica.com)

Google will no longer back up the Internet: Cached webpages are dead. Google Search will no longer make site backups while crawling the web.::Google Search will no longer make site backups while crawling the web.

BananaTrifleViolin ,

Absolutely. This is just locking off users access and is an example of enshittification. 0 benefit to users but benefits to Google (more click through to sponsored links, and blocking AI content crawlers probably)

BananaTrifleViolin ,

Enshitification strikes again. Cached doesn't make money and maybe reduces adclicks so it's gone. This benefits Google but not users in any way whatsoever.

BananaTrifleViolin ,

Absolutely agree.

Musk is running twitter into the ground. He's already destroyed Tesla with his decisions around self-driving, it just seems the markets haven't cottoned on yet to how grossly overvalued the company is. OpenAI is looking to be a mess.

You're absolutely right that this technology has massive potential, and Musk is definitely not the guy to deliver it.

BananaTrifleViolin ,

I have an lg TV, and have plugged in a Chromecast and a Fire stick. Jellyfin can stream to Chromecast and the app is available on fire TV to connect to your server. I'm switching to a linux based living room PC at the moment for more privacy. I've also tinkered with raspberry Pi in the past and it works well with Jellyfin.

There are so many options, you honestly don't have to be held back by LG.

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