Posts by LionelB

Gtk 5 might drop X11 support, says GNOME dev

Re: Gnome devs who drank the Wayland coolaid...

"... I hacked out a nice way to get TraditionalOk to work in Firefox so I can have REAL SCROLL BARS again"

Nice - would you consider sharing that?

People who regularly talk to AI chatbots often start to believe they're sentient, says CEO

Re: Contrast

Where did you find service desk operators?

Cerebras sets record for 'largest AI model' on a single chip

Re: GIGO: the modern version

Interesting: I myself am just an input -> output transformer (okay, with a bit more interactive feedback, maybe). I model and represent aspects of my training data (which I prefer to call "life experience") on the basis of my design (which I prefer to call "evolution"). And, try as I might, no doubt my output reflects biases in my training data. I accept this may be a design flaw.

How did you mourn Internet Explorer's passing?

Re: It's not dead.

"There are STILL FTP sites out there"

There sure are, especially in the scientific world. Routinely use FTP to share and download large neuroimaging datasets.

Bill Gates says NFTs '100% based on greater fool theory' amid crypto cataclysm

Re: NFTs have no intrinsic value whatsoever, but have sold for multiple millions.

Read my post again: I can neither agree nor disagree until I know what you intend by the term "intrinsic value".

Re: NFTs have no intrinsic value whatsoever, but have sold for multiple millions.

I don't know, though... surely the financial value of any item is - by definition - the maximum that someone else is prepared to pay for it. Now if you can explain to me exactly what "intrinsic value" actually means - and, preferably, quantify it - then we have a conversation.

Disclaimer: I worked for a mercifully brief period as a mathematical analyst for a hedge fund. The nature of the job involved first unlearning everything you thought you knew about what "money" means.

Look to insects if you want to build tiny AI robots that are actually smart

Reminds me - anyone watch the Brazilian surveillance-society sci-fi series Omniscient? Weirdly stylish, no sign of a second series, unfortunately.

Just thinking the same. How is any of this remotely new? My mate did his PhD on "swarm intelligence" in robotics back in '98.

I love the Linux desktop, but that doesn't mean I don't see its problems all too well

Re: Face facts

I suspect some of those downvoters will be regular Reg readers who come here for stimulating, informed discussion, and are mildly exasperated by childish, content-free flamebait. There are other forums for that.

Re: Choosing to choose

"Yes, where is (a fully working) MS Office ..."

Errm, in MS Windows, maybe Mac too. I guess you'd have to ask MS why they haven't produced a Linux version.

FWIW, I loathe MS Office, and actually find some of the alternatives available on Linux to be preferable.

Re: Some concerns though

"And so what?"

And so it was useful to him, and no doubt an educational experience. Is there a downside to that? And why should you care anyway?

Seems to me you've entrenched yourself in a rather silly position, and yet you keep digging... YARALD (sure you can work that out ;-))

Re: Chicken and egg

I think the truth is that the whole "Linux evangelist" thing is a little over-egged.

At least on this forum, the Linux "evangelists" are basically people - like myself, and probably yourself - who use and like Linux, and for whom it works better than the alternatives. Or are we to call those who use Windows because it works better for them (perhaps because of software availability) Windows "evangelists"?

It feels a little like one of those annoying "culture war" thingies that seem to be all the rage these days. Personally, I want no part of that.

Re: It's about the apps, silly

That question is best directed to Microsoft.

Re: It's about the apps, silly

I.e., you want an Windows Without The Windows Annoyances. Linux is not, and never will be, that OS. That OS does not exist.

Re: Chicken and egg

<shrug>I work in scientific computing, where Linux is de facto standard and has the appropriate tools, whereas Windows isn't and doesn't.</shrug>

Is that a "truth" that's supposed to be "hurting" someone? The truth is I couldn't give a flying one whether the world and her brother choose to use a different OS. I'm fine that people use what works for them.

Re: Some concerns though

"But, with all these distros are there really enough devs to support them all?"

Who cares, though, if they "support them all". In reality, there are a handful of easily-identifiable major distros - and they are well supported.

You can whinge about wasted effort, duplication, blah blah of hobbyist distros, but hey, you could whinge about stamp-collectors if you're so inclined. Let them have their fun, what do I care?

Re: Do they really?

"Unless there is a single Linux desktop release that can kill Windows stone dead in every possible metric people won't change. It's too scary and they're too resistant."

But there's your problem, right there - going on what you say yourself, those Windows admins are not going to be suddenly convinced just because there's a single Linux desktop. That's not their issue. Their issue is simply that it's Not Windows(TM).

Do they really?

"But that's not what Linux desktop fans want. They want Windows crushed and bleeding underneath the Linux juggernaut."

Infantile straw man. I'd certainly count myself a Linux desktop fan - it's my OS of choice for work and home - but I could not possibly care less whether it "crushes" Windows or not.

For what it's worth, I seriously doubt any desktop OS ever becomes mainstream until it is routinely delivered preinstalled on mainstream hardware - like Windows, Mac OS, Chromebook, Android, iOS, ... This is simply because users have no motivation to change OS (even assuming they are aware that the option exists, which most users probably aren't). And indeed, why would they change? They know what they're getting, and are familiar (if not happy) with it.

Vivaldi email client released 7 years after first announcement

Re: Old Man

We use Slack at my work (in academia). Slightly annoying (though infinitely preferable to Teams), but it has a place for fine-grained correspondence within a large organisation between heterogeneous and overlapping groups of different sizes.

Finding attachments is about as easy/difficult as for email. Plus all correspondence is archived (if it's set up paid to do so).

Having said which, email is most certainly alive and kicking in academia, for all the good reasons others have given - although, unfortunately, in my workplace this means Outlook, which is the Devil's Spawn(tm).

GitHub drops Atom bomb: Open-source text editor mothballed by end of year

Re: Emacs

"Import a whole web browser, just for a text editor?"

Emacs: been there, done that.

Re: Emacs

Not to forget the obligatory: Emacs is a great operating system - if only it had a decent text editor".

Now let's talk about Vi...

OpenAI's DALL·E 2 generates AI images that are sometimes biased or NSFW

Re: The real world as it is, or as you'd like it?

Just nice things, I hope.

Re: The real world as it is, or as you'd like it?

Stopped reading at the "woke" word, since inevitably anything that follows is bound to be nonsense.

Re: So...

At my school, the soup served in the cafeteria was definitely Not Safe.

Linux Lite 6.0: It's quite pretty, but 'lite' it is not

As someone usually as fed up as the next person with your prolific and obsessive rants about the diversity of the desktop Linux ecosystem, I (partially) agree with you on this one.

But it really doesn't matter that much to me which Linux distro I'm using, because I don't actually want a "desktop" - I'll stick Fluxbox on it and have pretty much the same stay-out-of-your-way user experience whatever the distro.

Spam is back with a vengeance. Luckily we can't read any of it

Re: Not really spam but...

Yup. Virtually the only spam I get these days is addressed to [e-mail] rather than [e-mail], so it's easy just to filter it to a SPAM label, then permanently delete everything under that label once a month or so. It's by definition - my definition, because it's my email address - 100% true positives (sorry, my email address simply has a period there, full stop), but unfortunately Gmail (last time I checked) doesn't seem to allow you to automatically bin it permanently.

Start your engines: Windows 11 ready for broad deployment

Ladies of Ladbroke Grove?

The sad state of Linux desktop diversity: 21 environments, just 2 designs

Re: Not that unreasonable

Now, my computer doesn't have a CLI. Why would I want one?

$ make me a cup of tea

make: *** No rule to make target 'me'. Stop.

You're right, they're bloody useless - and rude.

Re: Not that unreasonable

Ooh, I don't know... I'm guessing specifically to annoy anthropogenic climate change deniers.

Re: Not that unreasonable

Ever driven a French car?

Re: The curse of overchoice

Really? Is it really such a problem for the novice looking to use Linux, though? There are only a handful of "major" distros. 9 out of 10 recommendations on this forum alone have been for Mint.

Prospective Linux user: Hmm, everyone seems to recommend Mint for the Linux novice. Golly, I wonder which distro I should try first - there's tons of them!

Sure, you might find the duplicated effort of Linux "tinkerer" distribution-builders silly, but hey, I'm sure they get off on it (and are no doubt learning a lot of useful stuff in the process) - why begrudge them that? Do you rail against stamp collectors too? But it's deeply disingenuous (if not, in your case apparently, weirdly obsessive) to suggest it's a huge problem for actual users.

Re: The curse of overchoice

That's the thing about, y'know, life. There are dozens of different answers.

Basically, the OP is looking for Windows Without The Windows Annoyances. That OS does not exist.

Re: The curse of overchoice

"In all innocence"? Really? Sorry, but they had clearly failed even to google what they were looking for, which came across as risible, verging on trolling.

Re: The curse of overchoice

It sounds like you -- and clearly you are not alone -- want Linux to be Windows Without The Windows Annoyances. That OS does not exist, and Linux is not that OS. It's a different OS (with an ecosystem of distributions and desktops), with its own (or their own) way of doing things. As such it has a familiarisation curve. (Easy to lose sight of, perhaps, but you had to learn and familiarise yourself with Windows once.)

If that is not for you, stick with Windows, and learn to live with the annoyances.

If it is for you, then take a deep dive, and chances are it'll pay off.

For what it's worth, I'd recommend Linux Mint with one of the major desktops; the download page gives you some idea what to expect. That should not be too jarring for a Windows user - the desktops on offer are not radically different from Windows 7 (which was, to my mind, as good as Windows ever got). But don't expect it to be Windows Without The Annoyances. You will need to (re)learn some stuff and possibly find alternative applications for some things; and no doubt you will find new annoyances.

BTW, I am obliged to use OneDrive (along with other Office stuff) for work. It works fine in the browser on Linux - I don't really know whether the functionality is limited as compared to the desktop versions.

Eggheads demo how to fool share-trading bots with carefully crafted retweets

Well, it's a truism that unless you have a crystal ball, virtually any investment is a gamble. If you think otherwise, you probably deserve to be scammed.

Mozilla browser Firefox hits the big 100

Re: A well worn story.

Actually, I think they call everything they don't like "woke".

AI models still racist, even with more balanced training

Re: Peeling the onion

Well, hold the front page: Scientists Seek Explanation for Anomalous Result!

Out of interest, what would your explanation be?

> It seems to me that no-one is suggesting racism here.

Except, perhaps, the author of the clickbaity and thoroughly disingenuous headline.

Re: Crazy

The implication of the study, or interpretation of results, is that the issue here is not with the algorithm, but the data.

I do agree that the headline is dumb clickbait.

Well, looking for neural correlates of behaviours and cognitive phenomena via neuroimaging has indeed attracted criticism as a "new phrenology".

The comparison is not entirely fair though, since the shape of your skull almost certainly has no bearing* on your cognitive phenomenology, whereas patterns of neural activity in the brain almost certainly do. There are certainly statistically-reliable studies which can detect, e.g., your conscious state (wake, sleep, coma, etc.), or the influence of certain drugs from neuroimaging data (I have been known to work in this area). It doesn't feel like a giant leap to propose that neural correlates of behavioural phenomena might be present and detectable.

*except, perhaps, in cases of severe injury, or some medical conditions

Re: As I commented in an earlier story on AI

> It is time to stop giving ML the title of Artificial Intelligence unless you can prove it is open-minded and unbiased.

You mean open-minded and unbiased like human intelligence? Oh, wait...

> Or maybe, just maybe the AI is telling the truth.

What "truth"?

> Seriously everytime AI doesn't give the results they want it's muh racisim.

Well, the "results they want" is good predictive accuracy. It seems to me that no-one is suggesting racism here. They are simply looking for an explanation for a puzzling discrepancy in predictive performance; puzzling, since the way the study was conducted there's no a priori reason to expect any difference between racial groups in the ability to predict the factors they tested.

Problems for the Linux kernel NTFS driver as author goes silent

Re: Hang on a mo ...

> ... since 99% of users and even developers can't read, modify or even build the code themselves without extensive training and support...

A bit like closed-source, then.

Why the Linux desktop is the best desktop

Re: re. Anyone who tells you Linux is hard to use wasn't paying attention

Hm, good point, I wonder why there are more Linux fans on this forum - it's not as if the article was about Linux... oh, wait.

Re: Standard desktop

True, Linux doesn't in general package up monolithic development environments. Development on Linux is arguably aimed at more sophisticated coders. I suppose on Linux there is a steeper learning curve, but the payoff is that you end up with a much deeper understanding of what you're actually doing.

> On linux, setting up something as a simple Python development system, involved command line after command line of installs.

Well, if you look at a Linux Python development environment like PyCharm, it seems installation does indeed involve the command line - and some cut'n'paste (I think there's a package for it on Ubuntu as well, and in fact installation doesn't really look that much simpler on Windows). I mean, if you're going to code/develop, then noob or not, if a command line frightens you, you may as well just pack it in right now! (FWIW, I started with Fortran in the 70s - everything was command line, of course.)

Ex-Googlers take a stab at building 'general intelligence' that makes software do what you tell it

Re: Autopilot

Easy: you generate some generated-code checker code. Of course you run it on itself first, to check it's working okay.

Google Docs' AI-powered inclusive writing auto-correct now under fire

Re: Orwellian nightmare

The term "Coloured" or "Cape Coloured" remains somewhat controversial in South Africa, because it was an official racial classification under the Apartheid system (it excluded "Black" people). Most, but not all, use the term to refer to themselves - but may be unhappy for outsiders to do so, especially Americans and British, as they are aware that the term has different connotations in those cultures.

Cape Town (my home city) is, historically, incredibly ethnically and culturally diverse, and the Apartheid classifications were arbitrary and cruel - many families were split, and people forcibly removed from their homes and livelihoods to bleak townships on the outskirts of the city.

Of course the absurdities of Apartheid were rife. As I recall, there was a bizarre interlude in the 70s or 80s, during which Japanese people were re-classified as "White", while Chinese, along with other Asians, remained "Non-White" - because South Africa was trying to negotiate a trade deal with Japan. In today's South Africa language remains another toxic legacy of Apartheid.

Re: Orwellian nightmare

*Bovine-fucking-shit wee person.

British motorists will be allowed to watch TV in self-driving vehicles

Re: Too early.

Yes, I'm guessing cheetahs, peregrine falcons and swordfish would make superb drivers.