rodneylives
@rodneylives@lemmy.world
- Comment on Lenovo’s New ThinkPads Score 10/10 for Repairability— Repair goes mega mainstream with the launch of Lenovo's new T-series laptops 1 day ago:
It wouldn’t be difficult to make Lenovo laptops more repairable. I’ve had two, and both required taking the whole thing apart to replace the keyboard, the part most likely to have problems. I hate that about them.
- Comment on https://www.androidauthority.com/desktop-mode-march-pixel-drop-3646069/ 2 days ago:
Mobile devices tend to be much less versatile than PCs, mind you, and on purpose, due to one of Steve Jobs’ most misguided apprehensions, that it’d be a good idea to hide the filesystem from the user. (Cue someone somehow claiming that’s Good Actually in three, two, one…)
- Comment on https://www.androidauthority.com/desktop-mode-march-pixel-drop-3646069/ 2 days ago:
Yes, although it will be a full ANDROID PC.
- Comment on Ars Technica Fires Reporter After AI Controversy Involving Fabricated Quotes 2 days ago:
Took a bit but found it, it’s not ChatGPT but a small self-hosted AI with an open source model: pluralistic.net/2026/02/19/now-we-are-six/
- Comment on Ars Technica Fires Reporter After AI Controversy Involving Fabricated Quotes 2 days ago:
Trying to track it down…
- Comment on Ars Technica Fires Reporter After AI Controversy Involving Fabricated Quotes 2 days ago:
He was sick and had a weak moment. He didn’t realize that it would just make the quote up.
- Comment on Ars Technica Fires Reporter After AI Controversy Involving Fabricated Quotes 2 days ago:
Key is, used to be. Ars Technica is one of the best such magazines out there, but even their margins have to be razor thin. To stay at the top of Google search results you have to update super frequently. (Source: this Metafilter post: metafilter.com/…/Ars-Technica-Pulls-AI-Article-Wi…)
- Comment on Ars Technica Fires Reporter After AI Controversy Involving Fabricated Quotes 2 days ago:
I think the executive in question is Kyle Orland, who I don’t know personally but I’ve interacted with sometimes. He’s pretty good! Again, as I’ve said elsewhere in this thread, maybe I’m too close. I’ve never worked for either of them, but I’ve encountered them on social media from time to time. I think I interacted with Kyle concerning a Storybundle book once.
- Comment on Ars Technica Fires Reporter After AI Controversy Involving Fabricated Quotes 2 days ago:
I’ve interacted with Benj Edwards on social media for some time. He’s done lots of good work! He’s on (or maybe used to be on) Mastodon and Bluesky. He runs Vintage Computing and Gaming, and has written good articles for several prominent places. I’ve said as much in multiple forums, I feel like I’ve maybe been going on a crusade.
I haven’t seen many others defending him. I’m really torn up over this. They had a weak moment. They were sick (I mean, literally.). A few other people, notably Cory Doctorow and Paul Ford, have written LLM-defending places. And the AI hype has been deafening.
It’s amazing though, that so soon after he used AI, that it immediately hallucinated something job-ending. I knew it was really bad, but I didn’t know it was THAT bad. You get the sense, with so many people talking positively about it, that the hallucinations must be something that happens, what, maybe 5% of the time?
To me, it seems like the kind of mistake that he should be able to apologize for, promise not to do it again, and move on. But we’ve all had our good will taken advantage of for so long by malicious actors, like how Gamergate was used as a wedge to push loathsome politics onto a legion of young males. It feels like we can’t give anyone the benefit of the doubt any more.
I don’t know. I know I’m influenced by all the good work he’s done. I feel like that shouldn’t all be thrown away.
- Comment on Introducing Habitat - A Social Platform for Local Communities 5 days ago:
Any relation to Lucasfilm/Fujitsu Habitat/Habitat II? renoproject.org
It was an early virtual world, running originally on Commodore 64s, later on PCs and (in Japan) Sega Saturn, with a look and style heavily inspired by SCUMM games.
- Comment on Countries that do not embrace AI could be left behind, says OpenAI’s George Osborne 1 week ago:
What is a post doing on Lemmy’s top list with a minus 56 reputation?
- Comment on Burger King will use AI to check if employees say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ 1 week ago:
The joke my friend made is, “Elf on the Shelf in your ear”
- Comment on To the rapidly aging person reading this: GameFAQs is 30 years old, and people are sharing their memories of the venerable guide hub 3 months ago:
Thank you for your service!
- Comment on Linux gamers on Steam finally cross over the 3% mark 3 months ago:
By some reports it’s over 5%, statcounter may be undercounting Linux.
- Comment on Microsoft just changed where your Word documents live — here’s why it matters 4 months ago:
On the other hand… osnews.com/…/dark-patterns-killed-my-wifes-window…
- Comment on kurzgesagt – AI Slop Is Killing Our Channel 4 months ago:
You might try setting Google’s Web subsearch as your main search engine, or else put your searches through udm14.com, which does the same thing.
- Comment on What's your greatest "gaming high" you've been chasing ever since? Please take care not to spoil anything, if you are going to be story-specific. 4 months ago:
Katamari Damacy
- Comment on Why can't we have a static vintage web? 5 months ago:
Demand? What?
You can just have a site that says things. You might just get a trickle of readers, and that’s okay. Not everything has to try to rule the world. You can contribute this little part of it, that might amuse or inform some people, and not pile up yet more value to a terrible corporation like Wordpress, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit or (while I’m ranting) Fandom.
Plain HTML doesn’t break. You don’t need to update frameworks. It won’t make the user’s browser consume a ton of their RAM. Even if your image hosting goes down, the text will still be there. The biggest problems with HTML are external. Google giving attention to Reddit over your site, or de-prioritizing it if it’s not “responsive to mobile,” and web browsers choosing not to reveal by default what terrible resource hogs big sites can be. Check about:processes (on Firefox at least) some time, I’ve seen Youtube, Facebook and Twitter consume over a gigabyte of memory by themselves, apiece. (Nota bene, Mastodon consumes a lot too.)
It’s okay to be small. That was what the World Wide Web was envisioned as, its motto: Let’s Share What We Know.
- Comment on Why can't we have a static vintage web? 5 months ago:
I’m an old E2 member!
- Comment on What are some FOSS programs that are objectively better than their proprietary counterparts? 10 months ago:
Slant’s one of my favorites too, I also play a lot of Loopy, Dominosa and Bridges.
- Comment on What's a cancelled game you really miss? 10 months ago:
I’ve heard of them, I might consider trying one someday, but the research and effort to set it up is an obstacle. Plus I don’t run Windows any more, and I don’t even know what Linux support for it is like.
- Comment on What programs do you wish a good FOSS alternative existed, but doesn't or most of the FOSS alternatives simply aren't good? 10 months ago:
I’m sorry but… 20 years behind? What new features has, say, Word even offered in the past 20 years beside that damn ribbon?
- Comment on What are some FOSS programs that are objectively better than their proprietary counterparts? 10 months ago:
I haven’t checked to see if someone’s mentioned it yet (it’s a long thread!) but I want to put in a word for a piece of software I’m always touting: Simon Tatham’s Puzzle Collection!
It’s a wonder! 40 different kinds of randomly-generated puzzles, all free, all open source, and available for practically every platform. You can play it on Windows, Mac (if you compile it), Linux, iOS, Android, Java and Javascript in a web browser. It should rightfully be high up on the iOS and Android stores, but it’s completely free, has no ads, doesn’t track you and has no one paying to promote it. No one has a financial incentive to show it to you, so they don’t. But you should know about it.
- Comment on What are some FOSS programs that are objectively better than their proprietary counterparts? 10 months ago:
I think you’re overstating things a bit, but it’s true that I keep getting caught up by weird behaviors.
I paste image data into a layer. I drag the layer a bit to get it where I want it. I try drawing on that layer: nothing happens. Turns out, when I pasted the image, it created a layer the size of the current image with all the extra space filled with transparent pixels. When I dragged it, the transparent part of the layer that had been off the image’s borders was actually dead space, and it won’t accept drawing into it until I go under layers and choose to expand the layer to the dimensions of the image. Once you realize what’s happening it’s not so bad, but until that point it’s the software working how you don’t expect it, and some people are going to drive themselves batty trying to figure it out.
And just now in 3.0 I’ve discovered, if I copy a rectangular part of an image using the Rectangle Select tool, then paste that data into another program, what gets pasted is a transparent box the size of the original image full of transparent pixels, with the copied part opaque in the middle of it in its former position inside the image.
It seems like it’s purposely trying to come up with an unintuitive way to implement my actions. I don’t remember it being like this in the past. What happened?
- Comment on What's a cancelled game you really miss? 10 months ago:
City of Heroes, everything by Atari Games, the Wizardry series, the Ultima series, many others. I’m old, and I remember some of the games, and developers, we’ve lost.
- Comment on Nintendo Switch 2 Launches on June 5th Worldwide; 1080p Screen With 120 FPS and HDR Support, Docked Mode 4K Resolution Support Confirmed 11 months ago:
Something I’ve seen far less reaction to than I expected? While the Switch 2 looks like it takes standard MicroSD cards, it DOESN’T. It takes the fairly obscure MicroSD Express standard! I can’t even BUY an SD Express card locally right now! It seems likely, at launch, that Nintendo’s branded cards will be the only ones people can get that will work with it!
The Switch 2 has 256GB of onboard storage, much more than the Switch, it is true. But it’s also backwards compatible with the Switch, and lets users bring their old digital library over with them. I have a 256GB card in my Switch, it’s nearly full, and it doesn’t have my whole library on it! If I got a Switch 2, I’d have it filled up on day 1!
And the MicroSD card issue won’t be obvious to most buyers. Parents will get their kids Switch 2s, and wonder why their old card won’t work with it. It’ll look to them like the Switch 2 or the card is broken, unless they implement a physical lock against incompatible cards, and I don’t know if SD cards even support those. Also, SD Express cards are more expensive than standard ones.
This could end up being a debacle almost on the scale of the price (which, as others have noted, isn’t even Nintendo’s fault entirely).
- Comment on Tesla lost more than one-third of its value in first quarter 11 months ago:
I blame the rise of internet stocks. There were a few companies, like Google, Amazon and Facebook/Meta, that if you got in on the ground floor of them you became insanely rich, you got so much money that economically it became a good idea to speculate on lots of little companies. It’s distorted a lot of economic realities.
Tesla has been in that mode for a long while, and it’s largely still there despite everything. And if Musk hadn’t blown his own company up, it might even have paid out in the end. Tesla was the only company seriously making electric cars for a good while, they had a strong lead on everyone else, and they had their charger network. That’s a lead that Musk’s recent actions has foolishly squandered—really, foolishly doesn’t seem like it’s a strong enough word. It’s an unforced error, it’s an own goal, it’s Musk just handing his company’s lead to his competitors.
Tesla’s implosion may be the beginning of a new age of sober realism in corporate governance. Imagine stockholder meetings where executives are asked, “You aren’t going to Musk this up, are you?”
- Comment on Tesla lost more than one-third of its value in first quarter 11 months ago:
It has so much further to fall. Tesla is still wildly overvalued.
- Comment on What happened to FlyingSquid? 11 months ago:
I know FlyingSquid from another community, and sent them a private message just a few days ago saying hello. (I didn’t know they had been missing at the time.) FS is awesome, and I really hope they’re okay.
- Comment on "What Is Your Dream for Mozilla" - Mozilla is doing a survey, questions include "What is most important to you right now about technology and the internet?" 1 year ago:
This poll is for the Mozilla Foundation. They don’t make the browser. The post should probably have made that clear.
