Short answer: No. Long answer: I trust him so little I'd like to see him use a chainsaw as a sounding rod.
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RCS won't allow users to turn off certain things like read receipts. That's problematic for some. I personally like them but I know people who don't who I have unfortunately had to inform that they have to turn off RCS altogether to get rid of them even though there's a setting to turn off read receipts.
I have a couple of reasons. The first and foremost is that I use windows for two things. Gaming (I dual boot windows and Bazzite for that to cover the few games I haven't gotten to work), and work. My work laptop has windows 10 because the IT department can't get some of the legacy software we rely on to do our jobs to work in 11. The compatibility layer originally wasn't there and now it only works some of the time and every time there's an update it breaks something. As a result we will likely be paying to continue to receive important security updates after 10 sunsets in October.
Additionally, some windows computers lose certain functionality when you install Linux (touchscreen compatibility, pen input compatibility etc. Can I update my personal surface pro to Linux? Yes. Will I? Unlikely. It's way more likely that I'll jailbreak it to force free security updates for the duration. I've run into way too much stuff I've had to have to IT department just straight up turn off in both 11 and 10. 11 is much worse for this though and subsequent updates have a habit of turning that stuff back on because MS wants that data.
So much new telemetry. So many new ads. So much random tracking. Swapping browsers to Edge. Copilot. Etc.
My fedora rig has secure-boot/tpm enabled. But getting that to work isn't something the average windows user is going to do. The average windows user doesn't ever open the command line in windows. And that's the thing I think people in the Linux community need to understand. I grew up with DOS. I spent 30+ years using the command line. I have used windows since 3.0. I have a general understanding of how to get what I want out of windows. I'm learning to do that with Linux but I have been on Linux for like a year and a half. The learning curve when you are already very familiar with something else and have muscle memory for something else is staggering. And I can fully understand why it might be exceptionally confusing and unintuitive for someone who's never had to use a terminal ever.
The fact is, most computer devices are phones. They use apps. There is some overlap in that with windows, but the plug and play nature of how these people are used to doing things is just as important to this conversation as just about ever other point.
Windows even pops up "helpful" tips and tricks because they know that people aren't windows savvy. I personally hate them but I'm not the average windows user.
I'd also like to point out that windows had the audacity to change the design language and somehow make a usable tablet environment worse in windows 11 in a bit to be more macOS-like and I personally really really hate that as well. I have my desktop and start menu set up in a way I like it and windows 11 completely ruins that and in my case makes things harder for me because I am fighting muscle memory. It's egregious to have to pay for the privilege of changing my start menu or task bar. I shouldn't have to go in and doctor what apps are allow during start up. I shouldn't have to turn off OneDrive or office 365. I shouldn't have to turn off telemetry or ads. This is a device I purchased and the OS is not supposed to spy on me.
I would like to remind you of two things. The first is that reddit used to have a mod tool called "BotDefense". Its shutdown in July of 2023 directly lead to a major uptick in Spam Bots.
The second is that part of the ad revenue is "impressions". Impressions are just an account (bot or human) "viewing" the ad and they do not require a click-through. The platform hosting the ad still gets paid for those.
Thank you for this post. I have been talking the ear off my one Linux friend since I installed Bazzite and I'm sure he's got better things to do with his time than help me every time I text him with a problem or a question. A lot of online forums on the subject talk over my head so I need clarification even when I can find the solution to my problem.
It seems that he made claims in court that Apple the company did not knowingly engage in practices that would be considered anti-competitive under the law.
"For a year and a half, Apple has engaged in bad faith, levying a variety of different and new fees to app developers to get around the spirit of the judicial order. It put up scare screens, engaged in sleazy privilege claims, and lied under oath to the judge about its decision-making. Normally these kinds of tactics happen without consequence for important business executives. But this time, the judge accused Apple Vice-President of Finance, Alex Roman, of having “outright lied under oath,” and referred the matter to the U.S. Attorney for a criminal contempt investigation. She also went out of her way to blame Apple CEO Tim Cook directly." - From the article.
I sometimes wonder if I'm the only person who remembers top sites. Like sites where you went to get straight up pirated material for the purposes of making bootlegs etc.
Yeah. My entire windows machine is locked down specifically to combat the copilot ms365 plague. I'm also using Bazzite and generally loving it. But I have a work machine for work things and some of my programs require windows to work.
It's only playing dead. Its eyes are open.
I for one will not be putting any gibberish into Google's AI for any reason. I don't find it fun. I find it annoying and have taken steps to avoid it completely on purpose. I don't understand these articles that want to throw shade at AI LLM's by suggesting their viewers go use the LLM's which only helps the companies that own the LLM's.
Like. Yes. We have established that LLM's will give misinformation and create slop because all their data sets are tainted. Do we need to continue to further this nonsense?
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I'm gonna do this tomorrow. I gotta dig out the googly eyes.
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Long term/ extended stay hotels exist that will provide these things. But the vast majority of people don't even consider those. They rely on what they can search up on Google for the area and algorithms don't take into account that you need to bring your dog, want a separate set of bedrooms in the same suite, or that you're looking for a kitchen.
I see this every time AirBnB is mentioned and every time I wonder if people even know extended stay hotels exist.
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I believe at least one of the anti-trust lawsuits Google lost was brought by the previous Trump Administration.
This is largely the problem with most social media, and generative AI has made this problem worse just like it has made other pretty terrible facets of human interactions worse.
Anyone who was paying attention on reddit the last couple years (even pre-pandemic) could see that bots were taking over. The main difference (love mods or hate them) was that mods who's subreddits didn't rely on bot content to stay active were moderating the bot problem as best they could.
Now, most of those mods aren't mods anymore and the vast majority only really want the engagement anyway so of course they'll let bots basically take over.
Reddit the corp never cared about keeping bots off the platform and they care even less now. Bot engagement counts. Bot views of ads count. Removing bots actively hurts their bottom line in the short term so of course they aren't going to do anything with that.
The actual human users on Reddit don't care because they're there to consume. It doesn't matter to them if the posts they engage with are made by bots or not.
That's honestly hilarious though. They made Marvin and don't see the problem with that.
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Buy things up in the fallout. The power vacuum the collapse will create will be ripe for anyone who comes out financially ahead in such a situation.
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Tech giants welcomed Trump because they thought he would enable two things. A roll-back of regulations, and to increase profits. The thing is, the monkey wrench in this situation is twofold. The first problem is Elon Musk being placed in a position of power that enables him to detrimentally effect the profits and regulations of these industries to benefit his companies first and foremost while also being detrimental to these other tech companies. We see that a lot with the data he's been stealing from all kinds of government agencies under the guise of saving the government money.
This means that even regulations that are removed that pave the way for these companies to enact policy or even just products to enrich themselves are hindered by Musk being a direct competitor to a lot of them. Facebook/Instagram vs Twitter, Tesla vs Ford, SpaceX vs Blue origin.
The second problem is the tariff situation. It cuts off a majority of tech companies from the cheap manufacture of components, devices, and even just consumer electronics that a lot of tech companies rely on in order to get their products into the hands of users so they can siphon up user data.
A third problem is that Musk has his hands in so much stuff that he's pressuring the government to place his companies first in the running for. SpaceX and Tesla especially for things like bullet proof vehicles (where previously the government had contracts with other automotive manufacturers), and SpaceX being used for missions that NASA might have previously handled using Boeing products etc.
All these tech companies went to Washington DC to "Kiss the Ring" with the intention not just of avoiding a lot of legislation being leveled at them by previous administrations, but also in the hopes that they could position themselves as Musk had. For further government contracts. Because long after Trump is dead and buried, the contracts would be lucrative.
But that assumes they survive all the upheaval his administration is causing (and not just survive it, but come out largely economically and financially unharmed).
Anything may be possible, but the market has to survive in order for these companies to remain supreme.
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Trump's first administration filed the lawsuit that led to the court determination that Google held a search monopoly. The result of that is the DOJ filed a proposal that Google sell chrome web browser to another entity. Google has been fighting this proposal tooth and nail.
So the answer is, I'll believe Meta gets broken up when I see it.
We tested this extensively. On Android we all have the setting to turn off read receipts. It's broken. It does not turn off read receipts for us. Our phones run the gamut from pixel 9 pro/+ to a pixel 5. To get read receipts to go away we had to turn off RCS completely.