This Jamie Teevan appears to be living in a bubble...a tech bubble.
Posts by Icepop33
16 publicly visible posts • joined 14 Jul 2022
Microsoft Research chief scientist has no issue with Windows Recall
AI hallucinates software packages and devs download them – even if potentially poisoned with malware
Microsoft's February Windows 11 security update unravels at 96% for some users
Re: This Is Why They Say ...
I agree. Some people may benefit from bundled default apps, but I believe we have gotten so far away from the OS as just a foundation for the software and hardware of your choosing. You shoulnd't have to be aware that it's there, quietly doing its job holding up the rest. There was a time when customer was king, they really wanted our business by giving great value (for the time) without the extra BS, catering to our feature requests, and this would not have sounded so naive. Now Windows still mostly functions and supports a massive ecosystem, but it's iterating, not innovating, and it's made for them, not us, with "features" and changes we never asked for.
They've gotten too big for their britches, with enough infiltration in their markets that they don't have to try as hard anymore to please the customer. If they aren't an abject monopoly, they sure are emulatoing it with dark patterns and lock-in behavior. Just because an audience is captive doesn't mean they are enthralled. Not everybody has the wherewithall to make the switch to operating systems that remain far behind in consumer adoption. Data and services are probably two of the most valuable product classes globally today. They want to take the first and charge you for the latter. They should pay us to install their OS and Copilot, if for no other reason than they want us to have these things rather more than we do. They have to charge a fee to keep up the pretense ;)
I just need something that will run my programs for work and play without excessive telemetry, constant connection and monitoring, excessive notifications, nags, intrusions, unwanted and frivolous changes, forced failures due to automatic updating and the OSAAS model, advertisements, promotions, sweepstakes, steeplechase and Broadway shows. After the desktop loads, OS, I don't want to know you.
Superuser mostly helped IT, until a BSOD saw him invent a farcical fix
Windows 10's latest update issue isn't a bug but a feature – to test your patience
Re: Twas ever thus...
Indeed. It wasn't finally fixed until Windows6.1-KB3138612_Mar 2016 Windows Update Client fix iirc. Remember the obtuse strategy of installing an update and then having to install the servicing stack update last to be ready for the next set of monthly windows updates? By the time they came around, parameters would have changed. It was a broken system for so long. It tended to hang indefinitely or refuse to install certain updats. Never could figure out why they did that instead of installing SSU first and then the updates that could have been paired with it.
AI safety guardrails easily thwarted, security study finds
Re: Why bother? Surely an opportunity to track the crims?
I'm relieved you see that minor problem and hopefully just as the tip of the iceberg. Imagine a society where all your family, friends and neighbors have been deputized to report any transgression with the weight of authority behind their misperceptions and deceptions, perhaps granted the ability to make a "citizen's arrest" before they too are shot for their own transgressions. Not that they have any real authority, just licking a power stain, being tools of the establishment. Well, you don't have to imagine how that would turn out. Crack a history book dealing with human civilizations past and present. Wars have been waged by the virtuous to prevent the spread of this type of dystopian freedom smothering. Now imagine that the bits and bytes are now your thought warden and those behind them are unaccountable and unassailable. So no thanks to your idea of censorship, but it is not beyond us to get excited in the moment and cede our freedoms away on a promise to "do no evil" or "infallible program" or "totally secure data" or some such nonsense. Also, we are all creatives and curious to some extent, whether we publish or not.
As another poster mentioned, guardrails are there to prevent you casually or accidentally going over the cliff, but there is nothing to stop you from ramming it at speed and a calculated angle. I don't think we should be trying to prevent exposition of potential (and likely highly situational) "bad" content, whoever we anoint to decide this for us. What we should be striving for is a society that has a good basic education, which includes general ethics and critical thinking, and a healthy economy with opportunities for all to receive fair recompense for their labor (time mostly, or lost opportunity) or a living wage. This takes away negative pressure on good parenting. After several generations of successful implementation, you have a society that can be exposed to all manner of unsavory that actually exists under the thin veneer of polite society, but has the emotional maturity to parse it and put it in context.
A horse with blinders can be led practically anywhere.
It's 2023 and Microsoft WordPad can be exploited to hijack vulnerable systems
It doesn't on my computer due to a ridiculous authentication issue within the greater Microsoft ecosystem.
TLDR: PEBKAC while age verifying for GFW or Xbox game on PC (can't quite remember and I see red when thinking about it) and I did not wish to send a physical copy of my passport to some random office in BFE to prove my identity in their greater ecosystem and recover my account balance in Skype. Boulder compromised due to pebble.
It was a dystopian experience which has rightfully made me extremely wary of any form of federated cyber identity verification or authentication beside my username/strong password. It doesn't matter how centralized it is. When it works, you don't have to think about it. When it fails, it's a senseless black box of catastrophe. When it's compromised, all hell breaks loose at scale.
Microsoft resorts to Registry hack to keep Outlook from using Windows 11 search
Re: Microsoft has failed to get the basics right
I had to have a bit of a laugh when I read "..simplified further in 7, but still very functional in the start menu..."
What do you mean by functional? It's not a smart search, although I'm sure that phrase is in the marketing material/documentation. I think auto-complete is also mentioned.
Let's say I want to manage my disks.
I think there is a plug-in for the Microsoft Management Console that will allow me to do that.
Just need to find it. Let's try the Start Menu search bar.
Drum roll, please, if you possess the quality of endurance.
Type in "disk". Hmm, no, I don't want to clean up a disk or defragment one. Not yet, anyway.
"diskm"? Nope. I seem to remember it uses the 8.3 naming convention so the iterations I will have to check at least aren't practically infinite.
"diskman? Huh, I have a file called diskmana.gif? Funny.
"diskmgr"? No results. Aaargh.
Oh, "diskmgmt"? Yeah, that's it. Wait, it's just a bunch of docs and pictures? WTF.
Ok, so ask a buddy what the extension might be. Them: "It's .msc, what are you trying to do?" Me: "I want to see the status and health of all my drives." Them: "Good thing you aren't trying to shrink a partition or something." Me: "No, but I would like to find it." Them: "you want to FIND something on your computer using Windows Search? OK, I have better things to do, You're on your own." Me: "Gee, thanks!"
Type in diskmgmt.ms" Crap, what was that last letter? All I see are docs.
"diskmgmt.msa"? Nope.
"diskmgmt.msb"? Nada.
"diskmgmt.msc"? Zil..no, wait, there it is!
Now, I can try to calm down and reflect on the fact that I did all the work. It did throw me a bone in the end though, and actually match a file on my computer with my exact search query. It's like a guilty kid, that when you exactly spell out how you caught them stealing a cookie from the cookie jar, reluctantly produces said cookie from pocket....in pieces, with lint and what looks like a cockroach leg.