poopkins
@poopkins@lemmy.world
- Comment on Windows 11 finally overtakes Windows 10 2 weeks ago:
No, they didn’t. This community read too much into a blog post that stated “over 1 billion,” compared it against an old blog post from several years ago that stated a more precise number of “1.4 billion” and came to the hasty conclusion that they must have lost 400 million users.
Microsoft has since updated their blog post to clarify that it’s still 1.4 billion.
- Comment on Google hit with $314m fine for collecting data from idle Android phones without permission 3 weeks ago:
Yes, indeed this was just a copy error. Thanks for pointing it out.
- Comment on Google hit with $314m fine for collecting data from idle Android phones without permission 3 weeks ago:
The linked Reuters article provides a bit more context:
The jury agreed with the plaintiffs that Alphabet’s Google (GOOGL.O), opens new tab was liable for sending and receiving information from the devices without permission while they were idle, causing what the lawsuit had called “mandatory and unavoidable burdens shouldered by Android device users for Google’s benefit.”
[…]
Google spokesperson Jose Castaneda said in a statement that the company would appeal, and that the verdict “misunderstands services that are critical to the security, performance, and reliability of Android devices.”
- Comment on Windows seemingly lost 400 million users in the past three years — official Microsoft statements show hints of a shrinking user base 3 weeks ago:
I still have fond memories of using Ubuntu. At the time, it must have been 2009 or so, I was working at a company developing desktop software for Windows, OS X and Debian. It’d be so confusing to constantly switch between operating systems because it’d mess with my muscle memory, but Ubuntu was my favorite because of POSIX and the fantastic file manager.
For my purposes and from my experience, things have improved tremendously on Windows, despite it being popular to hate upon. I still frequently use Mac as well and it’s really hardly changed at all. I confess that I only ever use Fedora on a remote instance for very specific purposes and can’t really judge it fairly on day-to-day usage.
- Comment on Trump Team Has Full Meltdown Over CNN Story on ICE-Tracking App 3 weeks ago:
Push notifications though GMS don’t use the device ID; they use a generated GCM registration ID that occasionally rotates. Who knows what Google uses internally to associate GCM reg IDs to users, but to overly state that it uses device IDs is simply not correct.
I’m not suggesting push notifications are inherently secure because it’s impossible to make that determination from the outside. But their assessment is incorrect and the same privacy concerns apply to Apple.
- Comment on Windows seemingly lost 400 million users in the past three years — official Microsoft statements show hints of a shrinking user base 3 weeks ago:
I distinctly recall a version of Ubuntu that not only showed search results, but Amazon shopping links.
- Comment on Windows seemingly lost 400 million users in the past three years — official Microsoft statements show hints of a shrinking user base 3 weeks ago:
The topic is windows losing customers.
To a degree yes (ignoring the fact that assumption proved to be incorrect, but who comes here for facts), however the comments mostly don’t focus on that topic; much of the discussion here is about how evil Microsoft is and malicious Windows is as a product. The individual I replied to before you was the one who immediately sidestepped into a debate about laws that should restrict Microsoft’s ability to operate as a company.
People here are outliers in ideas and passion.
Ha, this genuinely made me laugh out loud! An amusingly and refreshingly optimistic position! I’d have chosen the words “circlejerk of pessimisme, hate and nativity” but it’s certainly accurate to call the community exceptionally passionate among each other.
- Comment on Windows seemingly lost 400 million users in the past three years — official Microsoft statements show hints of a shrinking user base 3 weeks ago:
It’s ironic that the only comment in this thread suggesting government action is your response. Lemmy is an echo chamber no better than the internet communities that predate it. The only thing Lemmy truly hates, is a nuanced opinion.
- Comment on Windows seemingly lost 400 million users in the past three years — official Microsoft statements show hints of a shrinking user base 3 weeks ago:
I wonder if consumers would choose to pay more to opt out of this. Surely corporations have done their research, because none of them have chosen to offer a buy-out option. To be perfectly frank, I wouldn’t pay more for a laptop for a guarantee that I’m not prompted for any up-sells, and it’d only make the consumer offerings more confusing if such an option existed.
All these companies are forcing themselves into the corner of offering the one-time fee to be as low as possible, preferably free, and find other revue channels after the purchase. I hold them all equally guilty of this: why pay $100 for Windows when there’s no such fee for a Chromebook or MacBook? Microsoft is forced by competition to reduce the fee and recoup it elsewhere, and they’re in my opinion not even the worst among those examples.
It’s odd that Lemmy directs its anger at an individual company, while they’re all guilty of the same practices, instead of towards their government representatives who are actually able to take action against it.
- Comment on Windows seemingly lost 400 million users in the past three years — official Microsoft statements show hints of a shrinking user base 3 weeks ago:
Kindly reference the sections where I’ve provided misinformation and I will add a correction.
- Comment on Windows seemingly lost 400 million users in the past three years — official Microsoft statements show hints of a shrinking user base 3 weeks ago:
You’re right that Edge routinely attempts to make its return—that’s annoying alright. Microsoft is skirting a fine line here since they were found guilty of antitrust practices for this very thing. (Tangentially, I wonder if iPhone users have the same complaints about Safari.) In Europe, at least, those updates prompt you whether to make the switch, and the user remains in control. It’s been many years since Microsoft changed my defaults.
You’re also absolutely right about the attempted upsells for Office 365 or OneDrive or whatever. I agree they’re ads and that they’re annoying, but not more so than how my MacBook constantly nags me about iCloud or how iPhone consumes it with app data, or how Google leverages its surfaces for Photos, Drive, Workspace and Gemini upsells.
In the end all these companies arrive at the same challenge: converting a one-time purchase into regular payments through subscription models. I had honestly forgotten about these prompts until you reminded me of them, and so long as they’re irregular and easy to ignore, I feel like Microsoft isn’t doing anything outright awful.
I often think communities like Lemmy choose to disproportionately hate on things. In this case it’s Windows, which I really don’t think is warranted.
- Comment on Windows seemingly lost 400 million users in the past three years — official Microsoft statements show hints of a shrinking user base 3 weeks ago:
I reviewed the community rules and didn’t see anything about Europe, so I’m left confused about what I’ve done wrong.
- Comment on Windows seemingly lost 400 million users in the past three years — official Microsoft statements show hints of a shrinking user base 3 weeks ago:
I didn’t mean to have upset you as I wasn’t aware that European users weren’t allowed to comment here. I only ever meant to speak to my own experiences and not on behalf of anybody else.
- Comment on Windows seemingly lost 400 million users in the past three years — official Microsoft statements show hints of a shrinking user base 3 weeks ago:
The results are honestly pretty spot on, at least for my use cases, and this isn’t different from how Chromebooks or MacOS does it (although for the latter, Spotlight results are hilariously terrible). Even Linux distros often combine on-device and online search results—are those also advertisements? I’m puzzled why Windows is called out in particular on this.
- Comment on Windows seemingly lost 400 million users in the past three years — official Microsoft statements show hints of a shrinking user base 3 weeks ago:
Yes, I probably use this hundreds of times a day! This is a perfect example of something missing from Mac that requires an App Store purchase to fix—same for better window management. I suppose Apple prefers this situation because it allows them to both monetize on a lackluster OS and avoid making investments to fix anything.
- Comment on Windows seemingly lost 400 million users in the past three years — official Microsoft statements show hints of a shrinking user base 3 weeks ago:
My personal experience with Windows has been different. I’ve not seen advertising anywhere in Windows so far; where have you seen that? I’m a bit shocked about Microsoft spying on me, too. Do you have any sources on that? It feels like that should be illegal in Europe and would make headlines.
I don’t use desktop office software and haven’t purchased any desktop software in probably a decade. My business makes heavy use of Google Workspace and uses online services that are agnostic to the operating system. The only things I’m really installing on my machine are developer tools through
apt-getand games through Steam. - Comment on Windows seemingly lost 400 million users in the past three years — official Microsoft statements show hints of a shrinking user base 3 weeks ago:
I know everybody’s here to rag on Microsoft, but I honestly am quite pleased with Windows 11. I comfortably do software development in an Ubuntu shell using the Widows Subsystem for Linux and it honestly works like a charm. Then I can unplug and play video games in Steam and everything works great, there, too.
Of course this is all possible on Linux, but my point here is that Windows really isn’t as awful as everybody makes it out to be.
Meanwhile, MacOS enters into a second decade of no innovation. It still relies on Homebrew for developer tools, still lacks any substantial improvements to Xcode and only ever receives iterative cosmetic changes like video lock screens and the new bundle of desktop backgrounds for its latest “update.”
- Comment on Men are opening up about mental health to AI instead of humans 3 weeks ago:
Funny, I was just reading comments in another thread about people with mental health problems proclaiming how terrific it is. Especially concerning is how they had found value in the recommendations LLMs make and “trying those out.” One of the commenters described themselves as “neuro diverse” and was acting upon “advice” from generated LLM responses.
And for something like depression, this is deeply bad advice. I feel somewhat qualified to weigh in on it as somebody who has struggled severely with depression and managed to get through it with the support of a very capable therapist. There’s a tremendous amount of depth and context to somebody’s mental condition that involves more deliberate probing to understand than stringing together words until it forms sentences that mimic human interactions.
Let’s not forget that an LLM will not be able to raise alarm bells, read medical records, write prescriptions or work with other medical professionals. Another thing people often forget is that LLMs have maximum token lengths and cannot, by definition, keep a detailed “memory” of everything that’s been discussed.
It’s is effectively self-treatment with more steps.
- Comment on Trump May Launch Wireless Phone Brand 5 weeks ago:
Register his own root Certificate Authority as well and this man is well on his way towards global surveillance.
- Comment on Half of companies planning to replace customer service with AI are reversing course 5 weeks ago:
Sounds like everything’s working as intended from Amazon’s perspective.
- Comment on Developer Builds Tool That Scrapes YouTube Comments, Uses AI to Predict Where Users Live 1 month ago:
This is exactly what I did on Reddit.
- Comment on Can Tesla's Self-Driving Software Handle Bus-Only Lanes? Not Reliably, No. 1 month ago:
Yes, it does. It performs speed sign recognition and lane departure warning continuously as well, but will only perform steering correction above a minimum speed (I believe 50 kmh) and adjust the speed while adaptive cruise control is switched on.
- Comment on Can Tesla's Self-Driving Software Handle Bus-Only Lanes? Not Reliably, No. 1 month ago:
What car do you have?
Volkswagen Group vehicle.
Are you saying that just in normal everyday manual driving your car would stop your car automatically from 60mph and not hit a wall because of a collision sensor?
My car’s AEBS will apply braking, shake the steering wheel, sound a loud alarm and flash the dashboard. I can’t say for sure if it applies full braking, or if that only applies at lower speeds.
Collision sensors are for slow moving things that are like 1m in front/behind you.
Perhaps I’ve not described the system accurately, because I’m not referring to parking sensors. My car’s owner’s manual states that AEBS works at speeds up to 220 km/h, and I’ve personally experienced it trigger while going over 120 km/h.
My take on Rober’s video is simply that Tesla’s automated driver safety systems are sub-par compared to other manufacturers. Perhaps somebody could perform another test with FSD enabled, but I personally don’t think it’s safe to require a driver to first enable a specific mode in order to avoid an accident—then they might as well just press the brakes themselves.
- Comment on Can Tesla's Self-Driving Software Handle Bus-Only Lanes? Not Reliably, No. 1 month ago:
I genuinely don’t understand what FSD has to do with any of it. My car’s front collision sensor works regardless of whether cruise control is enabled.
If I’m understanding your argument correctly, the driver needs to enable a setting first for a Tesla not to plow directly into a wall? I would say that makes it less safe.
- Comment on Can Tesla's Self-Driving Software Handle Bus-Only Lanes? Not Reliably, No. 1 month ago:
He didn’t use FSD because he was on a track and FSD requires a destination. It was using Autopilot, according to his statement. Are you suggesting that Autopilot is inherently less safe than FSD? I’m confused about your position on this.
- Comment on Realtek's $10 tiny 10GbE network adapter is coming to motherboards later this year 1 month ago:
10 Gb connections are widely available in Europe for very reasonable prices.
- Comment on Kids are short-circuiting their school-issued Chromebooks for TikTok clout 2 months ago:
What do you suggest children use instead?
- Comment on Are We All Becoming More Hostile Online? 2 months ago:
I feel like I’m fighting a one-person crusade every time I respond politely to some jerk online. Last night I couldn’t sleep because some rando on the internet said mean things. Why are humans like this? Why can’t we just be nice? Sometimes I feel like we deserve to go extinct.
- Comment on Windows Is Adding AI Agents That Can Change Your Settings 2 months ago:
Apple has entered the chat.
- Comment on End of 10 - Windows ten is ending. Microsoft wants you to buy a new computer. But what if you could make your current one fast and secure again? 2 months ago:
That’s a helpful insight about enabling a special mode in Steam, thank you for sharing.
For the record, I take offense to your accusations of me “talking out of my ass” and “spreading misinformation” because I didn’t know about this mode and what Proton is or how to use it. I’d have thought you would be excited to share this knowledge and spread the word about how users can rest assured they don’t need Windows in this day and age. Instead you’ve chosen to reinforce the stereotype that Linux users are antisocial know-it-alls who pick stupid fights through anonymous comment threads.