I can only speak for myself, but I have always had bad luck with Linux on desktop. Something always breaks, isn’t compatible, or requires a lengthy installation process involving compiling multiple libraries because no .deb or .rpm is available.
On servers, it’s fantastic. If you count VMs, I have far more Linux installations than Windows. In general, I use Win10 LTSC for anything that requires a GUI and Ubuntu Server for anything that only needs CLI or hosts a web interface.
Win10 LTSC still has quite a few years left.
Having my status turn yellow when I so much as look away from my screen is bad enough. I really hope this “feature” stays off.
How does Teams give away your location? I’ve used it extensively, but I’ve never seen someone’s location unless the enter it manually.
When it comes to writing code, there is a huge difference between code that works and code that works *well." Lets say you’re tasked with writing a function that takes an array of RGB values and converts them to grayscale. ChatGPT is probably going to give you two nested loops that iterate over the X and Y values, applying a grayscale transformation to each pixel. This will get the job done, but it’s slow, inefficient, and generally not well-suited for production code. An experienced programmer is going to take into account possible edge cases (what if a color is out of the 0-255 bounds), apply SIMD functions and parallel algorithms, factor in memory management (do we need a new array or can we write back to the input array), etc.
ChatGPT is great for experienced programmers to get new ideas; I use it as a modern version of “rubber ducky” debugging. The problem is that corporations think that LLMs can replace experienced programmers, and that’s just not true. Sure, ChatGPT can produce code that “works,” but it will fail at edge cases and will generally be inefficient and slow.
Social media companies, adult websites, whatever, can try to find ways to block children from accessing their content, but kids will always find a way around it.
It’s the parents’ responsibility to control their children. I’ve said 1000 times, children don’t need access to smartphones and tablets. A desktop PC or laptop with strict parental controls is adequate enough for school work, learning about technology, and some basic entertainment.
When a child is old enough to work and pay for a smartphone themselves, then they’re old enough to have a smartphone. A prepaid flip phone with basic voice and SMS is more than enough for a 15-year-old.
This is kind of a shit article. Most of these are just old hardware that eventually had modern improvements, not “trends.”
A “trend” is cold cathode black lights inside the case, not a silly naming scheme for CPU revisions.
I really wish there was a viable alternative for physical backups. Blu-ray just doesn’t have enough storage space, tape is expensive, and hard drives need to be periodically read.
I’ve read about holographic WORM media, but I just don’t think there’s enough consumer demand for the hardware and media to ever be as affordable as blu-ray.
Once upon a time, I could back up all my important data to a stack of DVD-Rs. How am I supposed to back up a 100TB NAS, though? The “best” alternative is to build a second NAS for backup, but that’s approaching tape drive levels of cost.
I sort of understand still selling CF cards. They were used in high end photo and video equipment until not too long ago, and they have storage space comparable with smaller SD cards and USB drives. Plenty of equipment using CF is still perfectly good and still worth using.
I’ve never heard of a zip card. If you mean the old zip disks (I think the largest was 250MB or so), I can’t imagine any reason someone would ever use one of these. Even new, zip drives were notoriously unreliable and not all that widespread. I had one, and I rarely used it in favor of CD-R or RW.
In clocks like this, the “set time” is often irrelevant. It’s more important to know exactly how much time has passed since the last time the clock was “checked.” If you’re running a radio transmitter at 6ghz, that’s 6 billion cycles per second. If you synch your transmitter to your clock once per second, it had better be accurate to the billionth of a second.
I haven’t tried W11 LTSC. Even if you cut out the bloat, I just can’t stand the interface. Hopefully 12 is better, but I’m not hopeful.
I switched all of my Windows systems over to Windows 10 LTSC a few months ago, and it’s been a game-changer. I still get security updates, but no advertisements, bloat, or new “features.” I believe it’s supported until 2032.
After that, I’ll probably switch my remaining systems over to Linux, but until then, it’s not half bad.
It’s certainly possible (and probably even likely) that you’re correct. Most of the people I’ve spoken to about that are somewhat tech-inclined and probably much more likely to be using an adblocker than the average person.
So many years of ad-free media has just ruined me on ad-supported content. I sat down in front of a public TV tuned to a cable channel the other day, and it was absolutely unwatchable.
The problem I have always had with cable TV, and now with streaming, is the advertisements. I understand why free services inject ads into their video stream; they have to make a profit somehow. I don’t like it, and I’ll block the ads, but I understand it.
Having experience what ad-free entertainment is like, be it from Netflix years ago, renting movies online, or Youtube with Adblock, I will never pay for a service that’s going to show me ads. Either make the service free and cash in on ad revenue or sell the service for an appropriate price that you can afford not to show ads. Sticking to the old model of “pay for cable TV and watch commercials” is never going to work, be it cable or streaming. I don’t think I’m in the minority here, either; I’ve heard this sentiment from plenty of others.
Is Creative Cloud a requirement for using Adobe products these days? Surely someone can just save data locally instead. Media files (especially raw video) can be enormous.
Microsoft knows that the addition of adds to Windows, Recall, data mining, etc are not suicide. As far as tech news goes, Lemmy really exists in an echo chamber. The vast majority of us at least have some interest in technology. For the majority of the population, though, this isn’t true. The typical person sees a computer as a tool to be used for other things. They’re not reading articles about the latest release of Windows, new CPU technology, the latest GPU, etc. They’re using their computer, and when it’s time for an upgrade, they buy whatever suits their needs.
If I was to ask any of my family, or most of my coworkers, about any of the latest “controversies” surrounding Microsoft, they would have no idea what I was talking about. Microsoft obviously thinks that the added profits gained by monetizing their customers will offset the loss of 1% of their users that switch to Linux. They’re probably right, too.
I like Windows, personally (well, Windows 10 at least). My unofficial rule has always been if it needs a GUI, then it runs Windows, otherwise, it runs Linux as a headless machine. Once Windows 10 is no longer a viable option, my unofficial rule will be “it runs Linux.” Most people will not make this switch.
I will resort to ChatGPT for coding help every so often. I’m a fairly experienced programmer, so my questions usually tend to be somewhat complex. I’ve found that’s it’s extremely useful for those problems that fall into the category of “I could solve this myself in 2 hours, or I could ask AI to solve it for me in seconds.” Usually, I’ll get a working solution, but almost every single time, it’s not a good solution. It provides a great starting-off point to write my own code.
Some of the issues I’ve found (speaking as a C++ developer) are: Variables not declared “const,” extremely inefficient use of data structures, ignoring modern language features, ignoring parallelism, using an improper data type, etc.
ChatGPT is great for generating ideas, but it’s going to be a while before it can actually replace a human developer. Producing code that works isn’t hard; producing code that’s good requires experience.
This is a good thing, but it’s hardly unique. Any advanced manufacturing facility will have remote access to their equipment in case an operator needs reconfigure it, transfer data, or in this case if they’re invaded by Lesser Taiwan.
I really think this depends largely on who you are and what you do with your phone. I have face recognition and fingerprint recognition both enabled on my phone. It’s good enough to prevent a thief from gaining access to my device, and if law enforcement asked, there’s nothing on my phone that could possibly be incriminating. Realistically, I’d have no issue just unlocking my phone and giving it to a police officer, although I do know well enough to always get a lawyer first. Biometrics add an extra layer of convenience; it’s nice to just look at my phone and it unlocks. My concern personally is more about someone stealing my phone and accessing my accounts than self-incrimination.
If I ever was going to put myself in a situation where I’d run afoul of the authorities, I’d leave my phone at home anyway.
At least for me, the whole “made by devs for devs” isn’t really the major downfall. It’s the fact that it can’t be trusted to remain functional in a dynamic environment. I like using the command line, but sometimes that’s just not enough.
If I need a specific software package, I can download the source, compile it, along with the 100 of libraries that they chose not to include in the .tar.gz file, and eventually get it running.
However, when I do an “apt update” and it changes enough, then the binary I compiled earlier is going to stop working. Then I spend hours trying to recompile it along with it’s dependencies, only to find that it doesn’t support some obscure sub-version of a package that got installed along with the latest security updates.
In a static environment, where I will never change settings or install software (like my NAS), it’s perfect. On my desktop PC, I just want it to work well enough so I can tinker with other things. I don’t want to have to troubleshoot why Gnome or KDE isn’t working with my video drivers when all I want to do is launch remote desktop so I can tinker with stuff on a server that I actually want to tinker with.