Welcome to Incremental Social! Learn more about this project here!
Check out lemmyverse to find more communities to join from here!

blind3rdeye

@blind3rdeye@lemm.ee

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

blind3rdeye ,

I'm sure Microsoft would be supportive of that point of view. And with their wealth and lobbying power ... ... Lets not mention it again, and hope for the best.

blind3rdeye ,

A typical ActivityPub+Lemmy post.

A PR disaster: Microsoft has lost trust with its users, and Windows Recall is the straw that broke the camel's back (www.windowscentral.com)

It's a nightmare scenario for Microsoft. The headlining feature of its new Copilot+ PC initiative, which is supposed to drive millions of PC sales over the next couple of years, is under significant fire for being what many say is a major breach of privacy and security on Windows. That feature in question is Windows Recall, a...

blind3rdeye ,

What's X? Is that the older version of Wayland or something?

blind3rdeye ,

The "and more" is the worrying part. They're telling us that some of the things they are adding are not 'features'. So then what are they?

Ads, probably. That's the trend these days. More and more ads, in everything, everywhere - just really probing the limits of tolerability.

blind3rdeye ,

Steam works very well on Linux. There is a setting in Steam to enable 'proton' for all games - this allows you to play Windows games on Linux without having to do anything else. It has worked flawlessly for every game I've tried.

As for your movies thing, I don't know. I deliberately avoid software that automatically searches and catalogues stuff on my computer. So I'm not sure how easy it is to do what you are asking for. It's something that I'd avoid rather than seek out.

blind3rdeye ,

Microsoft's insidious insistence on online accounts is the main reason I stopped using Windows. Even with a local Windows account, one time I accidentally opened Edge, and it started automatically importing browser info from Firefox and then syncing it to the Microsoft account that I was using for MS Office. From my point of view, that was some extreme bullshit. Too much to tolerate. I didn't want Edge to import anything from anywhere - no matter how 'convenient and easy' it is. and I certainly didn't want it to upload anything - no matter what assurances of 'privacy and security' are claimed. And until that point, I thought accounts for individual apps could be keep isolated to just that app.

blind3rdeye ,

Power management is a joke. Configured as best as possible, walked in the other day and it was dead - as in battery at zero, won’t even boot. Windows would never do this, unless you went out of your way to config power management to kill the battery (even then, to really kill it you have to boot to BIOS and let it sit, Windows will not let a battery get to zero).

Are you kidding? Windows does this all the time. There have been countless times when I've left work with a fully charged laptop, then bring it back the next day to literal zero charge without having used it. I no longer trust sleep or hibernate mode at all for anything longer than an hour. And I'm not the only one with this problem. My partner (with a different laptop) has had the same thing happen, and so have my colleges.

I've got some ideas about why and how it might happen; but kind of beside the point. The point is that it is not true that Windows would never let your battery drain to zero while the computer is not in use. It does do it. Often.

blind3rdeye ,

In my specific case the manufacturer is Microsoft. (It's a Surface Pro.) There isn't anything wrong with the battery. The gist of the issue is that there are milllion-and-one different things that can wake the computer from sleep, and then a couple of reasons why it might not automatically sleep again when ideal. If it was up to me, I'd have it so that the power button was literally the only thing that could wake it. But alas, I cannot even find a way to stop it from waking when opening the case (which I would like to do to check if it has woken up from some other reason).

In any case, I'm just saying that power management can be a problem in Windows (as well as in Linux).

blind3rdeye ,

How can such a fundamental element of thr human experience can be so conspicuously absent for almost all art and media.

What are you talking about? Heaps of movies have sex scenes. Heaps of songs are about sex. There are heaps of books and other stories about sex. The internet is packed with sex stuff of all kinds. Advertisements in the street are obvious implicitly or explicitly about sex. So how can you say that sex is 'conspicuously absent from almost all art and media'? Are you looking?

Allowing explicit porn on twitter doesn't make it ground-breaking in any way. It just changes the tone and target audience of the site, such that you will now see porn inserted into basically any conversation or topic.

The ugly truth behind ChatGPT: AI is guzzling resources at planet-eating rates (www.theguardian.com)

Despite its name, the infrastructure used by the “cloud” accounts for more global greenhouse emissions than commercial flights. In 2018, for instance, the 5bn YouTube hits for the viral song Despacito used the same amount of energy it would take to heat 40,000 US homes annually....

blind3rdeye ,

Your problems are with capitalism and how we distribute our resources, not with advancements in automation.

This particularly story isn't about wealth distribution though. It's about environmental damage caused by this technology. So that's a whole other class of problem. As for the other problems being about capitalism, I agree for sure that capitalism is a source of many many problems... but while we are in that system we should still try to minimise the problems. So if this technology has major problem when combined with capitalism, then we should either stop using capitalism, or stop using the technology - or both, until we make up our mind which we prefer to keep!

blind3rdeye ,

Sure. I agree it won't change unless citizens push for a change. But choosing to not participate is not pushing for a change. That's just capitulation. Choosing to not vote is not a signal of protest. It's a signal of someone who doesn't care what the outcome is.

Voting is the first and most basic step in pushing for change. Doing more is good, but you definitely can't skip that step.

CEO of Google Says It Has No Solution for Its AI Providing Wildly Incorrect Information (futurism.com)

You know how Google's new feature called AI Overviews is prone to spitting out wildly incorrect answers to search queries? In one instance, AI Overviews told a user to use glue on pizza to make sure the cheese won't slide off (pssst...please don't do this.)...

blind3rdeye ,

Google providing links to dubious websites is not the same as google directly providing dubious answers to questions.

Google is generally considered to be a trusted company. If you do a search for some topic, and google spits out a bunch of links, you can generally trust that those links are going to be somehow related to your search - but the information you find there may or may not be reliable. The information is coming from the external website, which often is some unknown untrusted source - so even though google is trusted, we know that the external information we found might not be. The new situation now is that google is directly providing bad information itself. It isn't linking us to some unknown untrusted source but rather the supposedly trustworthy google themselves are telling us answers to our questions.

None of this would be a problem if people just didn't consider google to be trustworthy in the first place.

blind3rdeye ,

Someone has been feeding you some weird bullshit about 15-minute cities. The concept of 15-minutes cities has nothing whatsoever to do with the things you wrote.

blind3rdeye ,

Yeah, for me it is the ads. No one likes ads, but I hate ads more than most people. So when Windows started putting more and more 'recommendations' into various places... I've been building up a list of registry tweaks to turn it all off - but as more ads got added, just couldn't tolerate it any more. I installed Mint with dual boot (defaulting to Mint). I thought I'd be booting into Window every so often for one reason or another, but as it happens - the only reason I ever loaded Windows was to check that the dual booting was working.

blind3rdeye ,

Password managers are good; but keeping track of passwords is not the main problem with making online accounts for everything.

blind3rdeye ,

I'm sure you'll be thinking about this conversation for longer than it took to make the original post.

blind3rdeye ,

I think we can find better things to bitch about than the price of games.

I'm sure you're right about that. But this topic isn't about games being too expensive. It's about ads being forced on people with no compensation. (Many people don't want ads under any circumstances, while some people say they would accept ads if they get financially compensated.)

blind3rdeye ,

Brand integration definitely is not neutral. Functionality to make it smooth and easy interact with nazi-central lends Nintendo's credibility to that platform. It's not a neutral feature.

blind3rdeye ,

Yeah, I will. These decisions don't just come out of nowhere, and I think its always a good idea to try to understand why things happen. By understanding the reasons for things, the world is less likely to feel arbitrarily hostile and unfair - and I can make better informed choices for my own life.

blind3rdeye ,

What's wrong with profiles in Firefox? I have 3 different Firefox profiles that I use, just for myself. (1 for general usage, 1 for banking, and one for a particular email account.) From my point of view, the profile system works fine. I don't know what else I'd even ask for to improve it.

And even still, I wouldn't expect most people would even want multiple Firefox accounts for a single computer login anyway; which is why the Firefox profile selector is disabled by default. (Tab-containers are a bit different, but related. I can certainly imagine a lot of people befit from those.)

blind3rdeye ,

I'm not really sure what you are asking for. From what I understand it sounds like you have multiple people using the same computer, and they all want their own Firefox profile open at the same time. You've got a shortcut for each profile; and it works... but you are unhappy with how the Windows taskbar looks when you have these multiple profiles open at once?

I feel like its a bit of a stretch to blame Firefox for what the Windows taskbar does while you have multiple people simultaneously trying to use the same web-browser. But sure, everyone has their own use-case. And if this isn't doing what you need, then it makes sense to look elsewhere.

blind3rdeye ,

I have shared a computer with people, but we definitely don't want our stuff open at the same time. I would find that confusing and a bit of a violation of privacy. So that leaves me (and most people I assume) just trying to imagine what it is that you are not happy with. And I honestly don't know what you are talking about when you say 'regular shortcut'. As far as I know, there is only one kind of shortcut in windows. It's a icon that runs a command of your choice, with an icon of your choice, placed in a location of your choice (any folder, any part of the start menu, or somewhere on the taskbar). So when you talk about shortcuts not being the regular one, I don't know what you mean.

But look, if you say it's bad for your use-case - I believe you. When I said that it was a stretch to blame Firefox, I didn't mean it was a non-issue. What I had in mind was that your primary complaint seems to be about what Windows is doing rather than what Firefox is doing. In any case, like I said before: if it isn't doing what you need then it makes sense to look elsewhere. Good luck to you.

blind3rdeye ,

I stopped watching this movie after this scene (which is pretty close to the start). The way the scientists and world leaders were discussing how to communicate was just so absurdly shallow that I couldn't take the movie seriously.

Like, I can easily suspend disbelieve to watch a movie about aliens doing all sorts of weird things that are inconsistent with basic physics; but it just really bugs me when a movie makes a point of bringing together the smartest and most capable people to solve some issue, and then utterly fails to show even a faint glimmer of that knowledge or intelligence in what they do. I reckon a random person picked up off the street would do a better job of first-contact with aliens compared to these clowns.

blind3rdeye ,

Look, I don't know exactly. I don't think it's an easy problem.

But I think the first stages would try to help the aliens understand how we communicate with each other. If people are waving their limbs around and breathing and poking at devices, and making all sorts of noises, it may be unclear which of those actions is meant to be communication. So the first thing is to have very clear correlations and patterns that are easy to recognise. Bring in the white-board to write words is a decent idea; but writing the word 'human' and then just standing there doing nothing with no follow-up is pretty much useless. There needs to be a couple of different words shown with very concrete context. 'Human' is not terrible, but it isn't a great choice because you can't really draw attention to what a human is when there is literally always a human there while you are trying to communicate. So it might be a decent word if the aliens already have the concept of words - but as a starting point... not really. Better to just say nouns for concrete things and point while doing it; with repetition and clear patterns. Writing just a list of counting numbers wouldn't be a bad idea either. If you write all the numbers up to 100 or so I think there would be a clear pattern, so that at least the aliens would know that you are trying to communicate by writing stuff.

Regarding my criticism of the movie, it's not so much that the whiteboard idea is bad, or that their attempts were bad; but rather that these are supposedly the attempts of experts - after other experts have tried and failed; and then the meetings with the project coordinators have weird discussions like "this method will take too long." - as if they think you can somehow side-step the need to establish a common language. And the description of the plan from the scientist talk about teaching the different meanings of the word 'you', and some grammar rules - as if that's somehow a core priority. I just think it's a really shallow level of discussion. Their strategy is super basic (but not unreasonable), and the criticism of it from the other characters is somehow even more shallow. They were even questioning why the scientist wanted to bring in the whiteboard. Like, isn't that extremely obviously? Do you really need to have a discussion about that? I really just felt like it was not a convincing set of smart people talking about the problem.

When I said anyone off the street could do a better job, I guess what I had it mind is that people would typically just point to things and say what they pointing to. They could bring in props and talk about the props; and perhaps try to give something to the aliens to interact with - if possible. Just basic ideas like that would be a decent start. I reckon that would be better than just holding up a whiteboard with a single word on it then just standing around. Like, how are the aliens meant to even know that it is a word at all - let alone what it might mean?

blind3rdeye ,

Perhaps you just have a different view on what is or is not an ad. For example when I see a link in the start menu for an app that I did not install, I consider that to be an ad. The most common time this happens is for Office. (Or Microsoft 365 or whatever it is called now.) Also, when I see a 'suggestion' to sign into a Microsoft account to use OneDrive - I consider that an ad. Microsoft aren't telling me about OneDrive to improve my life. They are telling me to improve their profits. And when I type something in the start menu to launch an app, any result that comes up that is not something I put on my computer is an ad. It often will suggest particular websites for example.

These are the kinds of thing that we're talking about. I'm sure if you're using Windows on a home computer you will have seen these things. (I assume you're talking about ads in Windows. It would be quite something else if you'd never seen any ad anywhere.)

blind3rdeye ,

I don't believe these are genuine interview answers.

blind3rdeye ,

I would have agreed with that before C++11. But since then, C++ has improved a lot. Its like the vision of what C++ suddenly became more clear. So I wonder if Linus would still say that today. (Unfortunately, there have been a lot of missteps in the development of C++ though, and so there is a lot of cruft that everyone wishes was not there...)

blind3rdeye ,

CATS, as in "you have no chance to survive make your time" ?

blind3rdeye ,

Have you read 1984? Same reasoning.

Roku explores taking over HDMI feeds with ads (www.lowpass.cc)

Roku is exploring ways to show consumers ads on its TVs even when they are not using its streaming platform: The company has been looking into injecting ads into the video feeds of third-party devices connected to its TVs, according to a recent patent filing.  ...

blind3rdeye ,

Not that I'm aware of. But secondly... it doesn't matter if this quote is from a pure soul or a broken one - the we can gain value from its message either way.

blind3rdeye ,

I also don't use wireless mouse or keyboard. For me, it's mostly about having confidence that it will work - and that if it doesn't work then there are fewer points of failure to think about.

For example, if my keyboard isn't responding... that could be because the computer has frozen and become unresponsive, or the keyboard is broken. That's about it. But with a wireless keyboard I have to consider that the keyboard itself might be working but the wifi is not. Perhaps the keyboard's radios are damaged or turned off; perhaps the battery is flat; perhaps the computer's radios are turned off, or the drivers have failed; or perhaps some device is interfering with the signal. ... I find that these thoughts just fill my head with crap that I don't want to think about or worry about. In particular, I'm sick of dealing with batteries. The cable doesn't bother me, so that's a better solution.

I remember one time I was using a wireless device, and it seemed to work fine except when I was sitting at a particular desk. I spent ages trying to work out what was going on before finally working out that my computer monitor was blocking the signal. Adjusting the position of the monitor, or the device, or the thing it was talking to fixed the problem. Changing the wavelength also fixed the problem. ... Wired just doesn't have any of those variables.

blind3rdeye ,

The 1% - but unfortunately this includes our leaders and lawmakers; so that puts power in the hands of those who value money above all else. And that power is used to extract more money and power from everyone else. Advertising always reinforces their message of course.

blind3rdeye ,

If you weren't looking to pick a fight, then your actions did not match your intentions. Because it's bloody obvious that what you are saying is inflammatory.

... seven different stories, my arse.

Court Bans Use of 'AI-Enhanced' Video Evidence Because That's Not How AI Works (gizmodo.com)

A judge in Washington state has blocked video evidence that’s been “AI-enhanced” from being submitted in a triple murder trial. And that’s a good thing, given the fact that too many people seem to think applying an AI filter can give them access to secret visual data.

blind3rdeye ,

The point is that the AI 'enhanced' photos have nice clear details that are randomly produced, and thus should not be relied on. Are you suggesting that we can work around that problem by choosing a random seed manually? Do you think that solves the problem?

blind3rdeye ,

Yeah, it's a minor annoyance... another minor annoyance on top of all the others. And another personal data leak (or siphon) to go with all the others.

This on its own is not worth switching OSs for - but as a piece of a larger picture it's yet another reason to consider it. And for some people this may be what tips the scales in their evaluation.

blind3rdeye ,

Over the years, Microsoft has been quietly taking away control from the users.

There's been a transition from normal settings that you can do whatever you want with, to "yes / remind me later" settings that Microsoft uses to badger you until you submit, to finally just no setting at all - just quiet compulsory data collection and surveillance; with various bits of mysterious software that you can't uninstall or disable or halt - because you're not the admin - Microsoft is.

It wasn't always this way.

blind3rdeye ,

Can you give an actual example of this or are you just making a broad accusation against anyone that uses something other than Proton?

The quote you are referring to is about people who have such specialised security needs that they choose to self-host. i.e. its about people who won't use Proton because it doesn't suit their needs. The only 'accusations' in the post are against Google & Microsoft, who are accused of buying the souls of their users and selling their data - which I think is a fair accusation. No other company or service is referred to, explicitly or implicitly.

blind3rdeye ,

I find it amusing and interesting that a heap of people work hard to create Debian, then a bunch of other people build on it to create Ubuntu, then a third group of people do a heap of additional work to wind back some of the changes to create Mint.

blind3rdeye ,

"... and then just keep giving them that same choice over and over again for as long as it takes for them to finally do what we want."

Redditors Vent and Complain When People Mock Their "AI Art" (futurism.com)

Setting aside the usual arguments on the anti- and pro-AI art debate and the nature of creativity itself, perhaps the negative reaction that the Redditor encountered is part of a sea change in opinion among many people that think corporate AI platforms are exploitive and extractive in nature because their datasets rely on...

blind3rdeye ,

I'm pretty sure that artists are pissed because techbros have taken the artists' creations without permission and used them to train computers to mimic the artists. This is bad for a host of reasons. One obvious reason is that the thieves can then use this to make money, using the artists' work but without paying them - ever. Another reason is that since the AI can make work using the 'style' of an artist but without the creative direction of the artist, it devalues the style that the artist has worked to create. The new AI created work looks similar, but is not of consistent quality. Another reason is people generally think of art as a creative outlet; where someone's thoughts and efforts go into creating something. But if the work is done effortlessly, and primarily through the lens of what the AI sees rather than what a person sees - then it just devalues art and artistic creation itself. Art creation is basically the very worst thing to automate; economically, morally, and philosophically.

blind3rdeye , (edited )

Even aside from the obvious point that the outcome of this gamble is luck, there's another more subtle point that I think is more important: For people will significant wealth and resources, it is very cheap to take gambles like this. For some people, dropping $10k into some high-risk gamble is just a bit of fun, but for other people that's their entire savings; and for other other people - they'd never be able to afford to do that even if they were starving themselves to save money.

How do people get into that kind of position of privilege and power in the first place? ... the luck of where they were born.

blind3rdeye ,

And that's why many people don't pay attention; they don't like to feel angry all the time.

blind3rdeye ,

In this context, 'you guys' refers to USA as a whole.

It is important for the world that the USA doesn't elect a deranged dictator. So I hope you, as an individual, will vote for the better candidate.

blind3rdeye ,

This comic is pretty bad. It oversimplifies both positions to the point of complete triviality, then uses it to mock a group of people. The comic is not insightful, or funny, or representative or any real people in any sense. It's basically just a jab at some people that the author doesn't like.

blind3rdeye ,

According to the article, people generally don't use their real info on this site, but the site is making dubious inferences that allow them to pull the info from other sources to auto-populate the 'real' fields in their site.

blind3rdeye ,

Isn't that how most apartments work? The apartment I live in, and every apartment I know of has an "owners corporation", of which each owner of each apartment is a member. The members have meetings and elect a committee to make financial decisions. All members pay fees to the owners corporation. Most of the money goes to a building manager, which is an external company hired by the owners corporation to maintain the building. The building manager handles repairs and cleaning of the common areas and facilities. Any non-routine spending must be approved by the committee (and large expenditures, such as elevator replacement, would go to a vote of all members).

...

Anyway, the gist is what you said. Individuals and families own the apartments, and collectively they own the whole building and make decisions about how it should be maintained and run.

blind3rdeye ,

Apparently sometimes referred to as 'long pig'.

blind3rdeye ,

In any genocide, the perpetrators always have a 'reason'. They'll always be able to tell you that the people that were killed deserved it, and that it needed to happen, and that the world is now better off etc. etc. But saying it and thinking it doesn't make it true. God can spew out justification for genocide all day. But why would I just take the word of a murderer? Especially if they are a super-powerful being who no-doubt had all sorts of other options available to them. Why would I take their word that suffering and death and destruction is justified when it is done by them - but not by others? And God doesn't even bother to attempt to explain or talk about that to me. I just hear it from you, and other fans... which makes it even less reliable.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • random
  • incremental_games
  • meta
  • All magazines
    •