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Gestrid

@Gestrid@lemmy.ca

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Gestrid ,

its completely unbearable

How so?

Gestrid ,

You're right about the forums. While they're useful as smaller chat rooms separate from the "main ones" (for example, someone in a Discord server I know started a forum for fanart and discussion about a specific upcoming video game), they're completely useless as a replacement for traditional forums.

Also, like you said, the search feature simply isn't good enough to be able to efficiently search through all those forums. While Reddit's (and probably Lemmy's) search engine isn't great either, it at least has the benefit of being indexed by other search engines.

Gestrid ,

That only barely looks like a face of an older woman.

Gestrid ,

Honestly never seen that happen.

Most times, I see it used on ads, political figures, and Elon himself.

Gestrid ,

They're at least understandable (usually), but they're like 5-10 seconds behind the video (sometimes longer), and they can be difficult to interpret at times.

Gestrid ,

Yeah, the dislike bar used to be a thing. You could see how many dislikes there were compared to likes, all represented on a line below the two buttons. It was sort of like this image, except imagine the "yes" and "no" as a single line (but retaining their separate colors).

Gestrid ,

And, once they discontinue it, I hope someone creates an add-on to bring it back like they did with dislikes.

It's a bit out-of-scope, but it'd be a great SponsorBlock feature!

Gestrid ,
  1. Sue website admins -> Users find/ create a new site
Gestrid ,

I recently blocked that instance, so who knows?

Gestrid ,

Being forced to be online to log in and forced use of OneDrive confuses new users just as much

You're not forced to use either of those, IIRC. Just set it up without connecting to the internet or without signing in.

Gestrid ,

The last time I had to setup a Windows profile (late last year on my then-new laptop), that was the case. Has that changed?

Gestrid ,

That assumes every ad is exactly the same (or at least the same length) and at the same spot for every user.

Gestrid ,

PlayStation doesn't have an X button, it has a Cross button. /j

Gestrid ,

This isn't a joke I made up on my own, either. That's legitimately what Sony calls it.

Gestrid ,

No, silly, that's Audio Over Ethernet! /j

Gestrid ,

Even a broken clock is right twice a day as the saying goes.

Though he's right for entirely the wrong reasons, I'm betting.

Gestrid ,

I still call it Twitter. I refuse to call it anything with the letter X in it. That includes "X (formerly known as Twitter)".

Gestrid ,

I can't ignore the irony.

Gestrid ,

In a series of posts on his social media platform X, Musk shared concerns about whether Apple and OpenAI will protect users’ information.

He called the software integration between the two companies “an unacceptable security violation,” and said Apple has “no clue what’s actually going on.”

Gestrid ,

Just based on what I've seen from other AI implementations (including Windows Recall), it seems like he was at least right that it's a security nightmare.

I'm not saying he said that out of the goodness of his heart or whatever. He definitely only said it out of jealousy or some other self-serving reason.

My broken clock statement wasn't meant to be taken as a compliment. It's the opposite. He's been wrong so many times that I'd gotten used to just pointing and laughing at anything he says or does. And it's gotten to the point that I'm genuinely surprised he actually said something "right" for once, even if it was for his own selfish reasons.

Gestrid ,

To be fair, at least with Windows, if you do a reinstall I've always found that it never runs quite like it used to. I've sometimes had to deal with some weird quirks afterwards. A friend of mine who kept switching between Google Android and open-sourve Android on his phone said the same thing. Every time he reinstalled Google Android, it simply wouldn't run as well as it did beforehand.

It's like taking a plumbing pipe out and putting it back in. Or taking apart a car engine and putting it back together. It never quite fits together the way it used to anymore.

Gestrid ,

I'd say I have the technical chops. I just don't have the time and energy needed to try to fix something.

I'm also the kind of person that, if everything's not working exactly the way I want it to, then I need to fix it right now. So I know I'd waste hours trying to fix something that (for me) just works on Windows.

Gestrid ,

I installed Mint on a USB to give it a go.

My wifi driver doesn't work on it. I have to plug my phone in to use it as a tethered hotspot to get it to connect. And I tried what a lot of the guides said online. Nothing.

Gestrid ,

I just subscribed to Kagi to try it out.

Gestrid ,

I think the Japanese use them when they're quoting something. I could be wrong, though.

Gestrid , (edited )

When I was setting up my new computer late last year, OneDrive wanted to sync everything in my user folders to OneDrive. No idea why. I knew it'd never fit everything anyway. To get it to stop, I had to create a brand new user account without a Microsoft account attached, move everything over to the new account, and delete the old account.

Now, I only have OneDrive sync my college stuff (homework, projects, notes, PowerPoints, etc.). Nothing else syncs to OneDrive. I backup my PC using a program called Backblaze instead.

Gestrid ,

They update on two Tuesdays a month

Correction: It updates every second Tuesday of the month. (Not including any potential "Preview" updates which might get released. Those are all optional updates, though.)

Gestrid ,

The IT admin: https://youtu.be/5l6l9T2w1DQ

Gestrid ,

The perfect soundtrack for this comic: https://youtu.be/6tMhkQ520Sk

Gestrid ,

I remember I used to have an add-on (at least I think it was an add-on; didn't Spotify officially support those at some point?) that synced the lyrics of a song to the timestamp. It used user submissions to figure out the timestamps and edit the lyrics. It was pretty cool.

Gestrid ,

Laughs in avatarfox

Gestrid ,

Not OP, but I feel like every time I come across a thread like this, someone is recommending a different version of Linux. It makes it really difficult to decide, and I can't exactly just "try out" Linux on my computer the same way I could try out other programs.

Yes, I could install it on a thumb drive, but that's not persistent, so I couldn't try it out for more than a few hours. Takes longer than that to decide to completely switch OSes.

Gestrid ,

I'm sure some did, but, unfortunately, those people aren't the ones making the business decisions.

The "line must go up" people are in charge because "line must go up" investors are saying the "line must go up".

Gestrid ,

I've read in a few different places that, unfortunately, more recent Windows bootloader's can break dual-boot setups.

Gestrid ,

I think I've tried Ventoy before, actually. I didn't know it did persistent installs.

Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out how to enable my PC to boot from a USB device. It uses the most recent version of the MyAsus UEFI, the one that looks like this picture I pulled from online (minus the red outline, obviously):

https://lemmy.ca/pictrs/image/0d57bab1-6ec9-4484-ad74-a9511618d64e.jpeg

You don't happen to know how to enable booting from a device from there, do you? All the guides I found online were for an older version of the Asus UEFI settings.

Gestrid ,

Honestly, I have Windows working just the way I want it right now (and I do know enough to be able to wrangle it to do just what I want it to do), but I could do without so much spyware. That's the main reason I'm looking into Linux. Any way you know how to get rid of Windows' built-in spyware without impacting security at all or breaking anything too badly?

On a different note, I have actually been looking for a new antivirus, preferably a free but very good one. Norton (my dad subscribed to it and got like 10 license keys years ago and shared with the family) has become too much like adware for me in recent years. Your comment has been helpful with that.

Gestrid ,

Found the thread on HN. Here's what (I'm guessing) a mod had to say:

It set off the flamewar detector, got flagged by users, and got downweighted by a mod.

The 'customer support of last resort' genre is common and not usually a good fit for HN [1]. If people feel this story is unusually relevant and interesting, I'm not sure I agree—long experience has taught us that one-sided articles like this nearly always leave out critical information—but I also don't mind yielding in an occasional specific case, so I've rolled back the penalties on this thread.

The issue from our point of view is not about story X or company Y—it's a systemic one: the most popular genres of submission (especially the rage-inducing ones) get massively over-represented by default, so countervailing mechanisms are needed [2] if we're to have a space for the more intellectually curious stories that the site is meant for.

[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20%22last%20resort%22%20support&sort=byDate&type=comment

[2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20countervail&sort=byDate&type=comment

Gestrid ,

Obligatory: https://youtu.be/CXFsWAkLoXQ

Gestrid ,

My university used something called Lockdown Browser. It was free to download for students. On Windows (can't remember if there was a Mac, and it definitely wasn't available on Linux), it could only run after a UAC prompt. It used the webcam and microphone on a computer to record the student. It also used facial detection. I'm pretty sure it also recorded the screen, at least inside the browser window.

It also had options that instructors could enable that had us students have to record a video of our immediate surroundings and have to take a picture of a photo ID with our name and picture (preferably our student ID).

If you did the three-finger touchpad swipe (which I've done accidentally before) to change to a different window or minimize the program, it'd refocus itself immediately, a warning would pop up and tell you that, if it happened a second time, the exam would be closed and the instructor would be notified.

If it detected certain applications running (ex. Discord, WhatsApp, Xbox Game Bar, etc.), it would ask to force close them or it wouldn't run.

Barring a situation in which cheating was possible (ex. the three-finger swipe mentioned above), the browser could not be closed until the exam was submitted.

If instructors chose to use Lockdown Browser, students wouldn't be able to open the exam unless they were using that browser.

So it was still possible to cheat (not that I did, but I'd heard of people who did and how they did it), but still difficult.

Gestrid , (edited )

The Green Party is a thing in America.

Republican and Democrat are the two biggest parties by a large margin, but a few other smaller parties exist. Plus, some people run as an Independent. They're not affiliated with any party at all.

Edit: I never meant to imply the other parties had any chance at winning an election in a meaningful way, which is what these replies seem to think I was saying. (They don't have a chance, honestly.) But other parties do exist, including a party in which you can "vote green". That is all I'm saying.

Gestrid ,

No, he becomes Peter B. Parker.

Gestrid ,

I think Peter does end up working for Stark in some of the comics. Then he goes on to form Parker Industries later on.

Netflix Windows app is set to remove its downloads feature, while introducing ads (www.techradar.com)

Netflix has managed to annoy a good number of its users with an announcement about an upcoming update to its Windows 11 (and Windows 10) app: support for adverts and live events will be added, but the ability to download content is being taken away....

Gestrid ,

Supermarket: Shocked pikachu face

Actually, supermarkets typically factor theft and other types of damages (ex. product broke in transit, came open, etc.) into their projected sales.

Gestrid ,

FYI, that repo says it's an archive and that the new repo is https://github.com/thomst08/requestrr

Gestrid ,

Oh, look, it's Reddit all over again.

(Yes, yes, different reason. Same user response, though.)

Gestrid ,

I just got a ping the other day from a Discord server that said they'd finished moving their support onto a forum on their website specifically because Discord's forum feature is terrible.

Gestrid ,

and is already getting enshittified.

Not yet. They're still trying to squeeze money out of people with their profile pic frames and stuff. They've yet to introduce ads into app (for now).

Gestrid ,

A server I'm in actually has a bot that, whenever a user types a command, will respond to a question with an answer.

Simple example:

@\Johnny: "Hey, my browser says 404, what does that mean?"

@\Support: !\404 @\Johnny"

@\Bot (using Discord's reply feature to reply to Johnny's post): "'404' is a common error message that can be caused by a variety of issues. Here are steps to resolve the most common issues:..."

I didn't feel like typing out steps to check if the website is down for everyone or to fix it if it's just you, but you get the idea.

The server I'm in doesn't typically handle questions about that, either. They're more specialized to something more specific that that, but, again, you get the idea.

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