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merc

@ merc @sh.itjust.works

Posts
4
Comments
1674
Joined
3 yr. ago

  • Windows 10 support quietly extended until Oct 2027, as users reject Windows 11

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  • I daily-drive Bazzite on multiple machines. It's excellent, even on machines I rarely use for games.

    If you use the console version of Bazzite (which I use on a HTPC), it runs Steam in console mode on boot. I assume that's what SteamOS does, it seems like they designed that mode to feel identical to using SteamOS on a SteamDeck. That makes it easy to launch games etc. without needing a keyboard and mouse. Then you can go to desktop mode when you need it.

    The desktop version of Bazzite is just a Linux desktop that starts Steam on boot so that it's running in the background. It has some gaming-related things installed but if you want to use it as a machine to write software it's basically ready to go.

  • Windows 10 support quietly extended until Oct 2027, as users reject Windows 11

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  • The part that takes energy and effort is making the switch.

    I'm really familiar with Linux. I've been using it on and off since the days of Slackware. My work computer was Linux-only for several years.

    But, even with that, it took weird driver issues with my GPU, combined with the impending death of Windows 10, combined with the ridiculous heavy handed Copilot BS on Windows to finally convince me to switch my main desktop PC to Linux.

    It was just the momentum that was so hard to overcome. I knew what worked in Windows, and I knew what didn't. I had already found and installed all the programs I needed. My settings were all how I liked them. I knew the keyboard shortcuts. With Linux I didn't know what would work or what wouldn't. With Linux, there were a lot of things I'd need to install and set up, and I knew that was going to take some effort. But, worst were the unknown unknowns. I didn't know what was going to cause me problems, and didn't know if they were things I could resolve in a couple of hours or if they'd take weeks.

    I'm glad I made the switch, and the overall maintenance load is much lower than it was in Windows. The frustration factor is 10x better. But, I did have to make a real effort to make the switch. There were a few weeks where it was pretty frustrating.

  • Big Tech is a thief and a liar, says New York Times publisher — ‘Hijacking of the public square is made possible by the original sin that animates their AI products, a brazen theft of intellectual pr…

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  • Copyright infringement is never theft.

    And, arguably, what they're doing with LLMs isn't even infringing copyright. If I look at a copyrighted picture, learn from it, then paint my own impression of it, my painting shouldn't be infringing the copyright. Do that with an LLM instead of a brain and it's a similar argument.

    The dual standard is really the issue. Meta downloaded terabytes of books from LibGen and loaded them into its model. If that's not infringing copyright, then anybody should be able to download a book from LibGen and read it without worrying about copyright infringement because they're just loading them into their brains. But, I have a feeling that Meta will get away with it as fair use, but individual people will still be nailed for "copyright infringement" for loading media into their brains in exactly the same way.

  • Turns Out, There Really Is a Cabal of Elite Crazies Trying to Control the World

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  • Has he had on Timothy Mellon, the second largest political contributor after Elon Musk in the last election cycle? Has he had on the Uihleins or the Adelsons?

    Only a small subset of the people making huge political donations want publicity, and only an even smaller subset of those are interesting enough that Joe Rogan would do a podcast with them.

    Don't think that most of them are interesting in a macabre way like Thiel or Musk. Most are old, crotchety assholes who inherited vast fortunes who aren't interesting, don't seek publicity, and just want to remake the world without pesky democracy interfering.

  • Mark Zuckerberg Orders His Employees to Start Having Fun Again After Brutal Layoffs Culled Their Colleagues

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  • How stupid would an employee have to be to think of Meta as a startup?

  • Mark Zuckerberg Orders His Employees to Start Having Fun Again After Brutal Layoffs Culled Their Colleagues

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  • It's not like Facebook ever had a good culture.

  • Why I'm Forced to Say Farewell: Google Management Has Lost Its Moral Compass

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  • I wonder if there were Nazis that in 1944 said something like "ok, that's the last straw, I'm going to have to quit the Nazi party."

  • Google Chrome is killing all uBlock Origin bypasses, Microsoft Edge, Opera to follow

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  • Zen is a reskinned Firefox. Firefox depends on Google's funding to stay afloat.

    Everything else, other than Safari on Mac is either chrome-based or firefox-based.

  • Google Chrome is killing all uBlock Origin bypasses, Microsoft Edge, Opera to follow

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  • The 2026 FBI recommends that you vote for Trump, or else.

  • Smart World Cup Tactics from the USA [Twonks]

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  • In that case, Mexico and Canada can have their own final, and Mexico can win, as is tradition.

  • Smart World Cup Tactics from the USA [Twonks]

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  • And then the only countries involved are Mexico, USA and Canada. Then Mexico beats the US, as is tradition.

  • Working class neighborhoods are resisting data centers at 5 times the rate of wealthy ones

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  • This polling seems to work extremely hard to avoid noticing the elephant in the room: a company isn't going to build a datacenter in the middle of Beverly Hills.

    The data from the article seems to suggest that people in the top quartile of income resisted 14 DCs out of the 365 projects considered.

    They then decided that that is a resistance rate of 14 / 365 * 100 = 3.836%.

    Um. No.

    The resistance rate is number resisted / number proposed for that income quartile. If only 14 were proposed in upper-income areas, and 14 were resisted, that would mean that the resistance rate for high income areas was 100%.

  • Working class neighborhoods are resisting data centers at 5 times the rate of wealthy ones

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  • Could be 100x fewer, or 10,000x fewer. 5x fewer would mean that rich people and poor people resist DCs at the same rate, but that there are 5x fewer DCs in rich areas. But, my guess is that rich people would actually resist a lot more if someone dared to consider building a DC in their area... but that probably never happens, because why would a company buy up expensive real estate for a DC?

  • Trump sets record as most unpopular president on day 500 of his 2nd term: Poll

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  • that during its 17 years of tracking presidents with YouGov

    17 years. The survey started in 2009. So, the presidents included are Obama, Trump, Biden and Trump in his second term.

    He's the most unpopular president... out of 3.

    I have no doubt that Trump is one of the worst, most despised presidents in at least modern history. But, I wouldn't consider "modern history" to have started with the Obama presidency.

  • Hope Springs Eternal [Feral Mills]

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  • Any day now.

    Till then, maybe it would be a good idea to try to improve what we have now.

  • Hope Springs Eternal [Feral Mills]

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  • Ok, and? What point are you trying to make? Capitalism bad? Great, what's your workable alternative?

  • Hope Springs Eternal [Feral Mills]

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  • You're still spending money because you employ the people doing the spreading. They could be doing other things, so even if they were slaves there's an opportunity cost.

  • Hope Springs Eternal [Feral Mills]

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  • Yes, they're different enough that the distinction matters.

    Advertising is about selling things. The company buying an ad simply wants to sell their product or service. The advertiser simply wants to make money by showing an ad. An advertiser might accept an ad from Palantir one day and one from Amnesty International the next day. Or, in the case of Meta or Google, selling ads for both simultaneously.

    Propaganda isn't about making money. It's a money-losing venture. The idea is to change people's minds, typically by deceit. Some people might say that a piece about the dangers of drinking and driving is propaganda, I think most would say it's an informational message.

    There are cases where advertising and propaganda overlap. But, there are also many cases where they don't. It's very useful to have two distinct words to describe the two different phenomena.

  • Hope Springs Eternal [Feral Mills]

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  • That's not propaganda. That's advertising. Google and Meta are ad companies.

  • Do you agree?

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  • That has always been the case, unless you were a farmer. If you're a farmer today you can grow your own food. The difference is that we just don't need as many farmers because technology has improved.