flop_leash_973
@flop_leash_973@lemmy.world
- Comment on LibreOffice is right about Microsoft, and it matters more than you think. 1 week ago:
Are you being dense on purpose? I said you could absolutely do it, but it was far more inconvenient.
- Comment on Why LLMs can't really build software 1 week ago:
I tried feeding ChatGPT a Terraform codebase once and asked it to produce an architecture diagram of what the code base would deploy to AWS.
It got most of the little blocks right for the services that would get touched. But the layout and traffic direction flow between services was nonsensical.
Truth be told it did do a better job than I thought it would initially.
- Comment on LibreOffice is right about Microsoft, and it matters more than you think. 1 week ago:
Sure they do, but all of the alternatives are not nearly as convenient. But you can absolutely get by without an iPhone or Android phone with Play services.
The example actually proves the point more strongly than LibreOffice vs MS Office does by the increased level of effort it requires of the user to go out of their way to not actively support the bad things Apple and Google do.
- Comment on LibreOffice is right about Microsoft, and it matters more than you think. 1 week ago:
The problem: our desire for convenience
This hits it right on the money. As nice as open source and open standards are, at the end of the day none of that matters to the 99% that want/need to do X as fast and painlessly as possible.
To people like my wife MS Office/LibreOffice/Google Docs are all the same thing in the category of productivity suite. And one of those does not meet her where she lives in day to day life. And it doesn’t because there is no money in doing so for LibreOffice. And there is no benefit to her to seek out LibreOffice for her uses.
Hell, just take a look around at the number of people that preach about the evils of Microsoft, Google, or whoever but love them an iPhone and Macbook. As bad as Microsoft and Google can be for screwing over the user with vendor lock-in they don’t hold a candle to Apple. But they get the money despite there being “better” options technically and philosophically for nearly everything they make, but Apple knows all of that pales in importance compared to being convenient.
- Comment on Starlink tries to block Virginia’s plan to bring fiber Internet to residents 1 week ago:
the Trump administration ordered states to revise their plans with a “tech-neutral approach” and lower the average cost of serving each location
In other words don’t give the tax payer the best options you can, give them the cheapest options to implement you can.
- Comment on Roku launches Howdy, a $2.99 ad-free streaming service 2 weeks ago:
It’s not the $3/month ad free Tubi type service that is the bad part. It is the part where it is attached to Roku. That company that proven the kind of trash they are already.
- Comment on Mozilla under fire for Firefox AI "bloat" that blows up CPU and drains battery 2 weeks ago:
Without having much knowledge of AI models beyond surface level stuff I read, but a good understanding on how computers work it seems fairly predictable to me that running an AI model in the browser session locally could be kind of heavy on the CPU usage. As such you would think as a developer you would start with adding the feature as off by default, so users that want it can turn it on and you can get some real world metrics on how bad that hit is going to be before bending the entire userbase over the AI kitchen table.
So both doing it for something as trivial as tab grouping and making it something you have to go into
about:configto disable seems really stupid. - Comment on Florida sues some of the biggest porn platforms, accusing them of not complying with the state's age verification law 2 weeks ago:
- Comment on EU age verification app to ban any Android system not licensed by Google 3 weeks ago:
Most western governments look at the ability of some of the more authoritarian places ability to just snap there fingers and make the entire internet go away with great envy.
- Comment on Hertz' AI System That Scans for "Damage" on Rental Cars Is Turning Into an Epic Disaster 3 weeks ago:
You mean an LLM that doesn’t have ability to understand context fails to make decisions that require context to do properly? Shocking /s
- Comment on Microsoft admits it would have to let Trump spy on EU data if demanded 3 weeks ago:
Then those EU firms should immediately make getting out of anything and everything Microsoft. As a US citizen, all our government and companies understand is personal profit and personal data hording. So make it hurt where they will feel it.
- Comment on Steam Users Rally Behind Anti-Censorship Petition 4 weeks ago:
Petitions like this are meaningless unless they come with a viable solution to the duopoly in payment processing that is Visa and Mastercard.
- Comment on White House unveils sweeping plan to “win” global AI race through deregulation 4 weeks ago:
How very Reagan of them
- Comment on ‘If I switch it off, my girlfriend might think I’m cheating’: inside the rise of couples location sharing 4 weeks ago:
We have location sharing enabling via Find My since everyone but me uses Apple. I don’t think my wife ever uses it and I only use it as a means of checking they seem to still be alive when they are otherwise late to somewhere they planned to me if I get worried about it.
In years past I would just call them, but this way is less actively intrusive. But people that use it as a spying tool have issues.
- Comment on Brave browser blocks Windows feature that takes screenshots of everything you do on your PC 4 weeks ago:
Let me know when it is discovered that they in fact replaced MS Recall with their own version that was scraping your data in yet another sketchy attempt to make money.
- Comment on Stop Killing Games is facing a complaint in the EU that uses nonsense logic to accuse the movement's founder of failing to disclose financial contributions he never made: 'It's not paranoia if they re 4 weeks ago:
Tells you that the guy behind it causing some folks in the halls of power to get some uncomfortable questions.
- Comment on Adblockers stop publishers serving ads to (or even seeing) 1bn web users - Press Gazette 5 weeks ago:
If ad networks weren’t the number 1 way to get malware installed on your machine, didn’t slowly take over the dedicated space for the actual content of a website, or put pressure on the websites in question to only publish things inoffensive to the advertisers maybe adblockers wouldn’t be such an issue.
If your site can’t exist without being a cesspit of annoying and useless infomercials and a deployment mechanism for malicious code injection then your site should not exist.
Not too many people had an issue with static banner ads back in the day after all.
- Comment on Password manager by Amazon 5 weeks ago:
My mother using something similar to keep track of her passwords for everything. While I prefer a password manager like Bitwarden or Keepass. I would rather her use a note book like this over something like Google or Apples password managers.
Or even worse, the same password for everything.
- Comment on Apple sues YouTuber who leaked iOS 26’s new “Liquid Glass” software redesign 5 weeks ago:
Willfully breaking an NDA with one of the most litigious companies in the world for what is essentially fake internet points is a bold strategy Cotton. Doesn’t look like it is going to work out for him.
- Comment on Google Keeps Making Smartphones Worse 5 weeks ago:
You can, but it is a pita. Having to buy dev certs and sign the .ipa file, etc. But technically, if you really want to, you can.
- Comment on Google Keeps Making Smartphones Worse 5 weeks ago:
The reason is that PC is made out of standardized plug&play components that you can make generic OS image for.
Yep, given the history of consumer technology as a whole it is really more amazing that the standard PC became a thing more than it is that people put up with what phones are today.
We all really owe a lot of gratitude to Phoenix for reverse engineering the IBM BIOS back in the day, and going to court to fight the IBM copyright lawsuit that resulted, as well as Compaq and all of the other IBM compatible clones.
- Comment on We need to start calling it Simulater Intelligence (SI): here's why: 5 weeks ago:
The biggest issue with AI as it currently exists with LLMs and such as I see it is that there is a pretty big gulf between what AI is today and what the average person has been taught AI is by TV/Movies/Books their entire lives.
And OpenAI, Google, Nvidia, et al are heavily marking the former as if it is the latter.
The big players are marketing the expectations creating by science fiction, not the reality of their products/services.
- Comment on People angry that Superman represents kindness are outright admitting that they don't want to be good people 1 month ago:
I like the Nathan Fillion comment during some red carpet interview when the interviewer was trying to egg him into saying something that would get rage clicks from one side or the other of the current political trash fire.
“its just a movie guys”
Superman was not a brooding edge lord until Snyder’s take, and it is obvious that a lot of people don’t know that.
- Comment on Robot performs first realistic surgery without human help: System trained on videos of surgeries performs like an expert surgeon 1 month ago:
Naturally as this kind of thing moves into use on actual people it will be used on the wealthiest and most connected among us in equal measure to us lowly plebs right…right?
- Comment on BREAKING: X CEO Linda Yaccarino Steps Down One Day After Elon Musk’s Grok AI Bot Went Full Hitler 1 month ago:
I would imagine she knew full well trying to be the CEO of X/Twitter with Musk so heavily involved was going to be a losing venture as far as her own goals from the jump. But she took the job for the huge pay day and being able to have “CEO” in her list of previous positions on her resume.
- Comment on Microsoft axe another 9000 in continued AI push 1 month ago:
I often wonder these days why anyone would have any interest in working for the likes of Microsoft or the other big names. Unless I am just severely underestimating how good that comp package is it seems like knowing you will get the ax within 5 years of your start date more than likely would really dump cold water on the whole affair.
- Comment on ‘The vehicle suddenly accelerated with our baby in it’: the terrifying truth about why Tesla’s cars keep crashing 1 month ago:
My wife had a rental for a trip she and my daughter were going on for a gymnastics event and I got to drive it back from the rental place and it had lane assist.
Every time another car passed in the opposite lane the damn thing would try and jerk in the opposite direction of that car, sometimes almost running itself off the road into the ditch.
- Comment on Young men are 'playing videogames all day' instead of getting jobs because they can mooch off of free healthcare, claims congressman 1 month ago:
What about all of those congress critters that get that big bad “socialized medicine” that the common people can’t (funny how it is fine when it is for them isn’t it.)? I bet that costs a shit ton given the average age of congress critters. How about we make some cuts there?
- Comment on YSK: For-Profit News companies are willing to create the world you want, so they can get your clicks. 1 month ago:
I recognize that news outlets have bills to pay, and I am generally willing to pay for something when it is worth it to me. But they all need to realize that not all of them can get away with a $10-$20 a month subscription fee. That is as unsustainable as the current advertising in every square inch of free space and data broker model.
A far more healthy for the entire news ecosystem would be accounts linked to your online IDP services of choice (Google, Apple, Microsoft, whoever else has one they want to support) and things like Google Pay/Apple Pay. Then you pay some small usage fee like power/water/toll roads. Then how much you give any given outlet depends on how much of their stuff you use.
That would refocus news on being things people want to read and less on advertising influence as well as cut back on the rampant consolidation that is and will continue to come of the current models.
- Comment on The 'Stop Killing Games' initiative is close to its final deadline, and after that, its leader is understandably done: 'Either the frog hops out of the pot, or it's dead' 1 month ago:
In my experience working with devs at game studios, it is rarely them that is so against open sourcing code, or giving fans of the game the tools needed to keep it going on their own once the devs move on.
It is nearly always the executives looking to make sure no one manages to enjoy something the people that work for them created without them getting paid for it.
