mctoasterson
@mctoasterson@reddthat.com
- Comment on Bossware rises as employers keep closer tabs on remote staff 4 days ago:
Yeah, what you described is how it should be.
Each person:
- What I did yesterday.
- What I’m working on today.
- Briefly describe obstacles or assistance I need.
That could be as little as 45 seconds per person if done properly.
- Comment on Bossware rises as employers keep closer tabs on remote staff 4 days ago:
Someone tell remote managers that daily status meetings for teams of 5-10 people should never be more than an hour long.
In person, they are “stand up” meetings to encourage them to be as uncomfortable and short as possible. Over web meeting, that convention tends to fly out the window.
- Comment on Microsoft detail 'agentic AI' plan for Windows 11, immediately admit it might install malware on your PC 1 week ago:
Even assuming the OS-integrated AI is 100% non-nefarious in what it is doing at a given moment, the fact that its a proprietary blackbox is still a problem for me.
Mega corp using my electricity and CPU cycles to perform “???” computational task with no transparency to the actual owner of the hardware and the individual paying the power bill. Fuck that.
- Comment on Peter Thiel dumps entire Nvidia stake, slashes Tesla holdings amid bubble fears 1 week ago:
Microsoft, Oracle, Nvidia, AMD, etc. all inking new partnerships to generate a headline and valuation increase. Meanwhile AI companies PE ratios creep upward.
The top few companies can only helicopter cash at eachother for so long before the bubble eventually busts. That’s not new income being generated, it’s more akin to check-kiting in a public trading context.
- Comment on Microsoft confirms Windows 11 is about to change massively, gets enormous backlash - Neowin 2 weeks ago:
I have some aging hardware (approaching 10 year old desktop PC) and I switched to Linux. I have to still use Windows at work but none of my personal computers are Windows anymore.
Microsoft can go kick rocks.
- Comment on Air Tag Alternative 2 weeks ago:
I mean, the bug and the feature of an Apple Airtag is the ubiquity of their devices and their ability to backchannel BLE over cellular networks using millions of end user devices with their pseudoconsent.
Just by the nature of how that expansive network functions, there is no similar alternative that you can control the privacy of.
The alternative would be a GPS transponder intended for vehicles, such as LoJack, or something similar. They are going to have power and subscription requirements, usually cost $1000 for the hardware etc. And in that scenario you still have to “trust” the vendor to a degree.
- Comment on Whatever happened to pickup artists? Did they evolve into alpha males or ascend to a higher plane? 3 weeks ago:
In the early 2000s there was seemingly infinite television studio budget to pick a random subculture or even individual sociopaths, and just give them a reality show. I just assumed as broadcast and cable viewership declined, these types of grifters also went away or were forced to get real jobs.
- Comment on Immich v2.2.0 adds OCR 3 weeks ago:
Finally it will be easier to search my vast catalog of memes.
- Comment on Where can I buy used computers, and are they on a discount now because of Windows 10 end of life? 4 weeks ago:
I would say this and also if you live in almost any medium sized place in the US, also try the local community college. You may have to bid on bulk lots but they sometimes sell individual PC hardware too, you may have to show up on a certain day that is usually advertised months in advance, online or on physical signage on campus. You might as well participate, since your county and local taxes likely subsidize the institution to begin with.
- Comment on As Microsoft Forces Users to Ditch Windows 10, It Announces That It’s Also Turning Windows 11 into an AI-Controlled Monstrosity 5 weeks ago:
I didn’t “have to” but, a few reasons…
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Swapping the drive created a pretty easy rollback path that was just “put original drive back”
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The drive was ~10 years old, and was in the range of recommended replacement for an SSD with the amount of TBW and age it had.
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Original drive was kinda small and a new larger drive was available for not very much money.
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- Comment on As Microsoft Forces Users to Ditch Windows 10, It Announces That It’s Also Turning Windows 11 into an AI-Controlled Monstrosity 5 weeks ago:
Microsoft literally wanted me to convert my desktop to e-waste as it lacks the magical TPM chip that Win11 demands.
I said “fuck that” and pulled the Boot SSD, kept the existing non-boot drives for data, and put in a brand new SSD, encrypted it and installed Pop OS in one shot.
Not only was it easy, I lost literally zero critical functionality vs. what I had with Win 10. There is a Linux app equivalent for everything I had before. I had a few driver issues but most were auto-discovered including obscure ancient printers and scanners on my network.
- Comment on Immich 2.1 Released with Better Slideshow Shuffle, New Notifications 5 weeks ago:
Those who run immich, how have you been backing up your library?
My deployment isn’t anything fancy, it is currently a Raspberry Pi 4 with a 2TB external drive for the photo library. Been running for more than 6 months with minimal issues. Now that we are at a stable release I need to get some kinda backup going for the photos themselves.
- Comment on Nvidia sells tiny new computer that puts big AI on your desktop 1 month ago:
If I had to come up with a steelman argument for small “AI focused” systems like this, I’d say that the more development in this space, makes the cost of entry cheaper, and actually eventually starves out the big tech garbage like OpenAI/Google/Microsoft.
If everyone who wants to use AI can locally process queries to a locally hosted open-source model with “good enough” results, that cuts out the big tech douchebags, or at least gives an option to not participate in their data collection panopticon ecosystem.
- Comment on Built to last 1 month ago:
When it came out, Dreamcast legit felt like it was from 5-10 years in the future.
- Comment on Microsoft just changed where your Word documents live — here’s why it matters 1 month ago:
And they wonder why some of us are still using local installed and firewalled Office 2007.
- Comment on YSK: You should enable peak refresh rate in Android 1 month ago:
Depends on your device and a bunch of other factors. If you are trying to maximize battery life you are generally better sticking to 60.
If you are consuming 120fps content or doing some kind of mobile gaming that actually supports it, you may benefit from 120.
- Comment on YSK about Hiring.cafe - a free job scraping site that lets you filter out Workday and other nuisance ATS 1 month ago:
Nice. Bookmarked for future reference in case.
- Comment on New U.S. gov't rule says chipmakers have to make one chip in the US for each chip imported from another country to avoid 100% tariffs — Trump admin allegedly preps new 1:1 chip export rule under new t 1 month ago:
Tostitos 'bout to enter the silicon production sector y’all
- Comment on The right to anonymity is powerful, and America is destroying it 2 months ago:
Almost more concerning is the way big tech has consolidated on standards that hurt anonymity, even though they aren’t legally required to.
For example, have you tried to make a burner email account lately so you can register at some stupid app or site that you only intend to use once? It is surprisingly difficult now because all the “legit” email providers are moving towards requiring phone-based 2FA which inherently deanonymizes you in the US due to KYC laws.
Also the throwaway email sites like GuerillaMail are being blocked more often by various sites. Their domains are now frequently blacklisted so you can’t use a burner account as easily to register anonymous social media or other website accounts.
- Comment on A ‘demoralizing' trend has computer science grads out of work — even minimum wage jobs. Are 6-figure tech careers over? 2 months ago:
The secret of the CS and IT job is that it has always been the Neuveaux Blue Collar job.
For every IT exec and formerly-technical middle-management douchebag making really good money, there are 2 to 10 actually technical resources making “okay” money relative to their skill and the insane hours and scenarios they are expected to work.
Oh and let’s not forget they’re constantly trying to outsource as much of that support and engineering talent as possible.
- Comment on Researchers embed digital 'fingerprints' into 3D printed parts — tech may make future ghost guns more traceable 2 months ago:
This has to be borderline useless as a positive identification tool, given that people can…
- Make their own models
- Run open source slicing software
- Inspect their own gcode
- Print from flashcard on a 100% offline printer with known clean firmware, such as the most common Ender 3.
How about they just focus on other methods of apprehending violent criminals and leave hobbyists alone.
- Comment on "Very dramatic shift" - Linus Tech Tips opens up about the channel's declining viewership 2 months ago:
I dunno. Something about the content I think.
A few years back some of their content was fun and interesting. Now lately it’s all either “here’s a bunch of comparisons of hardware you can’t even afford” or “Linus puts some ridiculous tech in his own personal house - thanks for subsidizing his home improvement projects by the way”
I will still watch an occasional video but there are other tech related channels that I enjoy a lot more.
- Comment on i 💚 animals. 2 months ago:
Worse - Sociology
- Comment on Nvidia Sales Jump 56%, a Sign the A.I. Boom Isn’t Slowing Down 2 months ago:
Well it’s “here to stay” I agree. But there are some real economic indicators that it is also a bubble. First, the number of products and services that can be improved by hamfisting AI into them is perhaps reaching critical mass. We need to see what the “killer app” is for the subsequent generation of AI. More cool video segments and LLM chatbots isn’t going to cut it. Everyone is betting there will be a gen 2.0, but we don’t know what it is yet.
Second, the valuations are all out of whack. Remember Lycos, AskJeeves, Pets.com etc? During the dotcom bubble, the concept of the internet was “here to stay” but many of the original huge sites weren’t. They were massively overvalued based on general enthusiasm for the potential of the internet itself. It’s hard to argue that’s not where we are at with AI companies now. Many observers have commented the price to earnings ratios are skyhigh for the top AI-related companies. Meaning investors are parking a ton of investment capital in them, but they haven’t yet materialized long-term earnings.
Third, at least in the US, investment in general is lopsided towards tech companies and AI companies. Again look at the top growth companies and share price trends etc. This could be a “bubble” in itself as other sectors need to grow commensurate to the tech sector, otherwise that indicates its own economic problems. What if AI really does create a bunch of great new products and services, but no one can buy them because other areas of the economy stalled over the same time period?
- Comment on What are the most useful things you've printed? 2 months ago:
I had to fix some crap in the kitchen and needed custom brackets to attach lighting under the cabinets in certain spots. It is pretty satisfying to go from a few measurements to, in a few hours, having custom parts that 100% did not exist before and couldn’t be found in any store.
PLA+ is an awesome material.
- Comment on This CEO laid off nearly 80% of his staff because they refused to adopt AI fast enough. 2 years later, he says he’d do it again 3 months ago:
“It enabled us to shit out products in 4 days.”
Glad they incorporated such thorough testing in their process.
- Comment on Study: Social media probably can’t be fixed 3 months ago:
I think just going back to internet forums circa early 2000s is probably a better way to engage honestly. They’re still around, just not as “smartphone friendly” and doomscroll-enabled, due to the format.
I’m talking stuff like SomethingAwful, GaiaOnline, Fark, Newgrounds forum, GlockTalk, Slashdot, vBulletin etc.
These types of forums allowed you to discuss timely issues and news if you wanted. You could go a thousand miles deep on some bizarre subculture or stick to general discussion. They also had protomeme culture before that was a thing - aka “embedded image macros”.
- Comment on Larry Ellison predicts rise of the modern surveillance state where ‘citizens will be on their best behavior’ 3 months ago:
Oracle is one of the worst companies in history and it’s products are ass.
- Comment on If you were born after 1990, you've never had this experience 3 months ago:
No Mingus Dew or Bebop Cola?
- Comment on India bans streaming apps you’ve never heard of — but millions watch 3 months ago:
People forget what a ridiculously large steaming market India is.
The second biggest YT channel by subscriber base is T-Series.