Posts by Greywolf40

Absolute Linux has reached the end – where to next?

Re: Not for me anymore.

Same here. I even tried to make Linux the main OS on some obsolescing hardware, but gave up when Windows graphics/video apps had the power and usability I wanted. Plus, buying better hardware became both cheaper in time and hassle compared to building my own.

That being said, I do enjoy the occasional read of articles like this one. Nostalgia can be fun.

PS: I have an old box sitting in the spare bedroom that's worth a tiny fraction of it's original cost, but too good to toss. More than good enough for the basics. I'll be installing Mint on it Real Soon Now. :-)

FTC sticks a probe into 'surveillance pricing' Big Biz uses to gouge us all

Re: FASCISM!

Satire is always good. To bad some people have defective satire sensors.

A path out of bloat: A Linux built for VMs

IIRC. Warp 4 ran Windows inside a VM. I recall poking around in my copy and seeing a "network". But I didn't have a network at the time. My inference: Warp 4 set up a virtual network inside the box to link Windows to W OS/2. Still don;t know if my interpretation was/is correct/ Can anyone confirm/clarify?

Thanks.

Windows 10 users report app gremlins after Microsoft update

Good point. I know a few hobbyists who use their PCs in their hobby, isolated from everything else, doing their limited job perfectly.

Wells Fargo, Zelle slammed by Liz Warren over rampant online banking fraud

99.9% of transactions are OK? That means 0.1% are not. That's one in a thousand. If everyone in my little hometown made one Zelle transaction today, three of them would be scammed.

That's unacceptable.

Windows 11 runs on fewer than 1 in 6 PCs

MS Offered W11 for my desktop and the Surface 7 tablet. Declined. W10 is OK as is, and some of W11's reported features sound like increased privacy invasions.

Google engineer suspended for violating confidentiality policies over 'sentient' AI

OK, but I've noticed that Intelligence" is often conflated with self-awareness, especially when it's dubbed "human-level intelligence." That latter is also a very fuzzy notion. The context of that phrase usually indicates that the phrase means "creativity". As for "creativity", that's a real tangle of hideen and mutually incosistnet assumptions.

As I implied: These and related terms are rarely defined well enough that the discussion or argument clarifies the question(s) being asked, let alone the possible answer(s).

It seems to me that in comments like this one "intelligence" is conflated with "self-awareness." I don' think they're the same at all.

I think that there's a good deal of confusion about "sentient". Also about "conscious" and "intelligent." So this whole discussion is mostly people talking past each other.

FWIW, "sentient" in my lexicon means "aware of environment." It doesn't mean "aware of self in environment", nor does it mean "aware of self being aware", which may underlie Lemoine's notions. That last notion is my working definition of "conscious". But it's obvious, I think, that these definitions make assumptions about "self" which are not clear, and are probably inconsistent.

Still, thinking about sentient machines forces oen to think harder about all these concepts and more. For example "knowledge" which IMO is an even fuzzier concept than "sentient."

Have a good day,

Why the Linux desktop is the best desktop

Re: Standard desktop

Yes, you do get a deeper understanding when you poke around under the hood, and write your own code, etc. , But most users (you know, that's the rest of humankind) don't care squat about knowing what they're doing. They just want to use the appliance. They want devices that are as easy to use as a washing machine. Easier, if possible.

Re: If you were to start from a bare machine, and Windows install media ....

Problem: What's the incentive for a manufacturer spend time (i.e., money) porting or writing a driver that will work with Linux? The user base is just too small.

Of course, there is a solution: an industry-standard OS-Hardware interface, which would make any driver work with any OS. Which is unlikely. (No points for detecting sarcasm).

I would use Linux exclusively if a) Corel hadn't given up on its port of WordPerfect to Linux; and b) There was an AI-enhanced graphics app like the Topaz suite, which I now use most of the time (payware, but worth it to me).

Bottom line: It's the apps, not the OS, that count.

Re: LibreOffice, for example, is every bit as good as Microsoft Office

"Every bit as good as Microsoft Office" is not a recommendation. On the contrary..

Re: "Linux Desktop"

"> Linux zealots are in total denial about this, because they don't see it through a user's eyes. They just see users as idiots.

Oh, the irony! You, Windows zealot, appear to see users as idiots who cannot follow simple instructions and read the documentation that comes with their OS"

Thing is, for average people phones, tablets, laptops, etc are just appliances. Read the QuickStart leaflet, maybe, and go. Why should one have to wade through pages and pages of manual in order to, say, take a photo? On the phone, you just touch the phone icon, and there it is. Etc.

Desktop OSs aren't consumer-friendly, period. There's a reason businesses hire IT people to make their employee's devices usable anywhere in the building or organization. It's called "I have to tread a manual to make this thing work???? WTF are you thinking????"

This has nothing to do with being smart or stupid. It has to do with what you want to spend your time on. Making the device do tricks? Nah. Using it for useful stuff? Yes!!!!

Yes, I like Mint, too. Unfortunately, I dislike LibreOffice precisely because it's too much like MS Office. And I dislike GIMP precisely because it's too much like Photoshop. MS Office was a kluge from the beginning, and Photoshop has been surpassed by recent suites that offer programs specialized for different tasks. But most of those run only on Windows/Mac. In short, Linux still suffers from the dominance of Windows/MAC when it comes to software beyond the basics. That makes it a good choice for the average user, who in my experience doesn't know enough about security to protect themselves properly, but makes for difficult choices for people who need specialised software.

Pop!_OS 22.04: New kid on the Ubuntu block starting to show real muscle

OK, nice, but what apps are available, other than the usual mail- browser-wordproc-imageproc-workalikes of the MS/Mac stuff? Pretty GUIs are nice, and all that, but they're a dime a dozen. Hell, my phone has a pretty GUI, but the main reason I bought a new one was the camera. As good as or better than a DSLR for everyday work, and much lighter.

In short, I don't want to see "news" about a new Linux distro, I want to see news about a new Linux app. One that will crush the competition. Fast, compact AI-powered video processing could do it for me.

Really.

UK contractors planning 'mass exodus' ahead of IR35 tax clampdown – survey

Re: Anonymous Contractor

"Switching to permanent roles would be more popular". I dunno how easy that is in the UK, but here in Canada, it's not easy at all. From the employing firm's POV, it's much cheaper to outsource. They have no incentive to encourage "switching to more permanent roles." On the contrary.

In the red corner, Big Red, and in the blue corner... the rest of the tech industry

In my opinion, core elements of infrastrructure should not be "intellectual property." You might as well claim prpoerty rights in the specifications for asphalt paving.

Are you getting it? Yes, armageddon it: Mass hysteria takes hold as the Windows 7 axe falls

Much ado about not much. Some XP machines are still doing good work for their owners. Same will be true for W7 hardware. Old machines are good for all kinds of offline tasks, so why trash them?

Anyhow, security risks are mostly the users, and out-dated security software. There's no reason to panic just because MS will noi longer patch holes in Windows 7.

Halfords invents radio signals that don't travel at the speed of light

Anyone who writes "... superior than..." can't be trusted to get anything right.

Dear humans, We thought it was time we looked through YOUR source code. We found a mystery ancestor. Signed, the computers

Re: Projection much?

Actually, no. You inherit half your genes from each parent. So do your siblings, but becauseof genetic mixing, their halves are different from yours. Eg, you version of gene X came from your Dad and your brother's version came from your Mum. Same for the 1/8th of genes derived from your grandparents. So, no, there is no such thing as patrenal/maternal extinction. You have a different genetic mix from all other descendants of your great-great-grandparents, is all. The differenc depends also on whether or not your ancestors were cousins. In smaller settlements, most marriages were between 2nd and 3rd cousins. Even in larger settlements, social barriers reduced genetic mixing. Still does. And then there's spontaneous mutations. Since you're alive, those mutations weren't lethal, but it means some fo your genes do not derive from your more remote ancestors. And...

"It's all rather coinfusing, really."

Re: Projection much?

Flaws, if any, would have been selected against. The reason so few Neanderthal genes appear in modern genomes is that, statistically, they either confer some advantage, or they have zero net effect, in which case genetic drift has conserved them.

You can blame laziness as much as greed for Apple's New Year shock

Re: IF Apple price-matched your Windows or 'Droid, which would you prefer?

'Droid. A few years ago, I'd've said iPhone, but the 'droid phones have surpassed iPhone.

iPhones are catch-up devices

Apple has relied on its mystique to keep its prices high. This applies to its other products as well. Jobs' design philosopphy was simple: make the product easy to use, and make it appeal to the users' desire for elegance. He understood the cool factor. In the early days of personal devices, those two principles made Apple superior to its competitors. Eg, I bought a Powerbook G4 because it had plug'n'play internet capability, which mattered in the days of internet cafes. The Windows-based machines caught up within a year or so, which is why I didn't stay with Apple. The cool factor doesn't work with me.

Ditto for Android vs iPhone. iPhone cameras began to lag behind Samsung etc. My daughter bought a new iPhone this year _only_ because her old iPhone had a poorer camera than my Samsung G5. Both phones were of the same vintage. The latest Samsung phones are being sold as "cameras with other stuff", which is IMO an indicator of where personal devices are going.

Apple could leapfrog, but I doubt that it will. In any case, the Apple mystique is fading. As consumers become more comfortable with the technology, they rely less on style and more on substance. Apple can longer claim that its elegance is an index of technical superiority.

Destroying the city to save the robocar

We already have a system that moves people around without their having to drive. It's called a streetcar (tram in the UK). And of course buses. Autonomous cars are one of the moste wasteful boondoggles ever conceived.

US shoppers abandon PC makers in hour of need

Yawn - space-filler news here

The "consumer users" that I know prefer portables. Sure, many families may still have one box, but everyone has at least one device, which they use most of the time. For 'serious" work, a laptop is more convenient than a box. The ad-flyers push the "laptop PC", just to drive the point home.

So, what's the important news here?

Oh, the weather outside is frightful, but the data centre temp's delightful

I expect this has become a case history for MBA students to mull over.

On second thought, probably not.

Microsoft's Surface Pro 2017, unhinged: Luxury fondleslab that's good...

We have a Surface 4 Pro, it's our travel computer, handy to have a desktop computer in the carry-on. :-) Would like the newer Surface, but not until the promise of LTE/SIM card is fulfilled. IMO the price/quality ratio of the Surface compres favourably with its competition, including Apple products

AI quickly cooks malware that AV software can't spot

AI now, metal-based life forms soon

AI will always have blind spots, but the really scary part is that we can't tell how they do whatever it is they do, so we can't tell where the blind spots are. It looks like metal-based life forms will be as error-prone as carbon based ones. Star Trek's Data is impossible.

The life and times of Surface, Microsoft's odds-defying fondleslab

Re: Still no.

I have a Surface Pro 2, with keyboard, it's our perferred travel computer. Like having a PC in your bag. Lighter and more powerful than the Win7 laptop we had at the time. Bought a BlueTooth mouse for it, Only reason we haven't bought a newer one is that it does everything we want, so there's no need.

Speaking in Tech: Nope, sorry waiter. I won't pay with that card reader

Reading vs listening

For immediate info such as news, I prefer reading to listening. Much faster. However, on road trips I like in-depth discussions, interviews, fiction, etc.

Headline topic not nmentioned

Nowhere in the topic list is the headline topic mentioned. I don't want to wade through what's irrelevant to me in order to find it.

Podcasts vs transcripts

I prefer to read.

Salesforce bins all Android phones bar Nexii and Galaxies

Salesforce limits bugfixes by OS

Well, OK, I hadn't heard of Salesforce before this news, so my question is, how much does it matter? I looked them up, and infer that most smartphone and tablet users aren't in their prospective customer base anyhow. Those whom this news affects won't have any problems limiting their purchases to supported hardware. For the rest of us, it doesn't matter, since it's not bugs or hardware glitches but design flaws that cause inconvenience.