Huh, well, I can tell you that Google classifies me as a local guide just because I try to regularly review places I go to, and I'm always honest with my reviews... I've left some scathing ones (not without reason, I hope) here and there as well 🤷🏻♂
It is my speculation based on experience and direct invitations to review stuff that Google effectively does ranked crowd-sourcing for Google Maps, etc., in which Google secretly tracks and gives heftier vote power to veteran accounts with longer histories of competence and reliability (especially, say, accounts that are a decade old and still regularly contributing and proposing corrections), unbeknownst to said account holders themselves. Perhaps their lead could be the way out of such messes.
The app Mental Math actually improved my mental math indeed! While division can typically be estimated because it never goes into mixed numbers/fractions, it does eventually go into 5 digits' worth of all the 4 basic operations; you set the difficulty and climb as you like. I'd never multiplied so accurately in my life, haha.
Hmm, I was only aware of the ones that actually, accidentally made it into releases. Well, what's to stop such devs from still getting targeted despite these safety checks (I mean, in their personal lives)? We've gotta find a way to protect these critical individuals...
Really? What software went from open-source to closed specifically because of vibe-coding? I'd also question how long they kept up their quality... What apps disabled contributions in favor of AI slop? I've never heard of this.
Stirling-PDF and Episteme Reader are solid examples of apps that went freemium, but I know of no product that entirely went paid-only because of vibe-coding. If anything, Stirling-PDF was originally vibe-coded and then added traditional programmers to its team upon seeing its popularity skyrocket, from what I remember reading. I'd be curious to see your examples on the other end.
Kdenlive is an old piece of software from over a decade ago. While we can't be sure that all of the contributors stayed AI-free, I'm sure all of the code was vetted for quality since a lot of people are invested in this incredible video editor.
Even from an anti-AI view, I'm not sure of what to make of skepticism like yours; what if vibe coders simply lie and say they didn't use AI? Then would you instantly give it a pass? Proof of AI-free work has become impossible due to offline FOSS models, so unless I'm missing something, all we can do is aim for quality and security by this point, I think.
Maybe they're interested in finding exactly what the public's critical breaking point is. Without gauging exactly what the demand (for distraction-free, private use) is, they cannot optimize their sales. They sure lost big with France, but we'll see who else follows suit...
I don't actually know if anything you try in the test state saves to the flash drive, sorry! But I know that if you try it, then shut down the PC and boot it with the drive removed, it will return to your copy of Windows like nothing happened since the last time you were on Windows.
I don't understand what you mean by "Mint version" and "distro version"; they're the same thing, I think.
Yes, you can try a copy of Linux from a USB flash drive and then shut down the computer, pull out the drive, and boot right back into Windows as if nothing had ever happened. The installation process is typically a desktop icon on the Linux distro; if you don't touch that icon, then it's all temporary. Glad to be of help!
Just checking: are you aware that you can try Linux on your machine without installing it? You can use Balena Etcher to write a disc image (.ISO) to any flash drive (that's the one catch: you must own a flash drive), and plug it in, have the PC boot from the flash drive instead of its own internal parts, and test-drive Linux entirely in it.
Alternatively, you could run it in a virtual machine via Oracle VirtualBox, which is free, last I checked.
Dang. I never thought of using the discovery servers for that purpose. Creative! Just hope that one side doesn't accidentally delete everything in there...
Did you know that Monopoly was originally invented by a woman whose point was how horrible monopolies are? It originally had a co-op mode that could topple monopolies through unions and co-ops.
Her game was bought by a jerk who removed the co-op mode and then claimed Monopoly as his own game. She died penniless.
If the capitalist system incentivizes me to outcompete others and hoard my wealth and, conversely, punishes me for my altruism; then, I am forced to play by the rules of such a system.
So change it... or be a pebble in the mountain of change.
Huh, well, I can tell you that Google classifies me as a local guide just because I try to regularly review places I go to, and I'm always honest with my reviews... I've left some scathing ones (not without reason, I hope) here and there as well 🤷🏻♂