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Comment Re:Outrage Fatigue is also a factor (Score 3, Interesting) 113

Sorry to be blunt, but this is just laziness. I hit the political fatigue wall a few months ago, so I made a new feed that only includes accounts that are focused on specific non-political topics - dogs, games, etc. Took me all of 5 minutes and that's my default feed now. The "following" feed is still there when I want to dip my toes into the wider garbage-sphere, and liberal use of easy to find block lists keeps the trolls away. The difference is that I don't spend all day scrolling because I actually run out of stuff to look at on Blue Sky and shut the browser tab when I'm done. It's delightful!

I don't know if their business model is sustainable, but it would be a real shame to lose it, because personally this bubble is exactly what I'm looking for from social media right now. I have zero regerts over not hearing the toxic bullshit and slop that's taken over the other platforms because I'm not a drama-addicted shell of a human that needs to "engage" with random strangers that have nothing but stupidity to contribute.

I can have meaningful conversations about topics with people of different viewpoints by engaging with my extended friend group and a curated list of news sites and subreddits.

Comment Re:A Win for Texas (Score 1) 89

Is this actually a ploy for Texas to make Apple collect all the data so their politicians can later subpoena that info for their own nonsense?

I do wonder how loose the requirements will be for proving "parentage" and "approval".

Will a credit card suffice? If you login to your kid's iPhone (or your little brother's) and enter your credit card info and give them the PIN, does that count as tacit approval? Or will Apple have to call the parents for voice approval on every purchase?

Comment The novelty tax is a real killer (Score 3, Insightful) 26

I tried ARC and thought it was pretty cool - but boy I'm just too busy to learn a new browser. I probably also am not the target market, since I mostly use a browser to, um, browse the web, and dedicated apps for 75% of my productivity work.

Sometimes "good enough" is too hard to replace.

Comment It's all about perspective (Score 1) 92

Wouldn't these companies say that it's all "opt-out by default" because by "default" you aren't doing business with them?

By doing any level of business with a company you are, in effect, opting-in. Just like when you shake a stranger's hand you're opting in to viral exposure, and if you walk down the sidewalk you're voluntarily exposing yourself to pollution and dirt on your shoe.

When you deal with a company you have to either do a bunch of research to understand what you're opting in to, or you just have to assume the absolute worst. Neither is something the average consumer wants to have to do, which makes sense.

The way the current administration is completely dismantling consumer protections in the US I don't have much hope for this movement here, but I keep dreaming anyway.

Comment Such corporate bullshit (Score 4, Insightful) 55

Giving someone a "Below Expectations" rating because upper management wants to hit numbers is such a crappy mind game. If everyone on your team is performing to the expectations you set out for them, but you need to reduce headcount, just rate them as they deserve and lay them off based on some other objective criteria, like seniority or cologne preference.

This feels like a corporate CYA move to avoid wrongful termination suits by lying about staff performance. I wonder if leaks like this could be used for a lawsuit instead...

Comment Just what I need - more startup shit to disable (Score 2) 93

Maybe people who launch and close and relaunch office apps all day will benefit from this. But most people I know don't work like that. You start the day by bringing up all your main apps and leave them running all day.

But as usual, MS loads more garbage on your system without asking and enables it by default, leaving it to users to figure out what changed and how to disable it.

Comment Would NTSYNC affect Raspberry Pi or Steamdeck? (Score 1) 34

This might be a dumb question, but my limited experience with Linux gaming includes my Steamdeck and trying to use Steam Remote Play on an RPi 4 running Raspbian.

Assuming (I know I know) that either or both of these platforms move to the new kernal would they likely benefit? Trying to stream games to the RPi so far has been worthless, and the Deck could always use more performance improvements.

Comment How much storage will we have now? (Score 1) 10

I can't seem to find out how much storage this means my organization will have in total. It says "The total amount of storage allocated to the entire G Suite account won't be reduced" but exactly how much is that?

I only have 5 users, each with their 15Gb. Does that mean I have 5x15 and that's where I'm at going forward unless I pay for more? If I add more users are they then sharing in the total amount I have now, or does my total go up?

Comment Will it go up after the forced W11 upgrade cycle? (Score 1) 54

I wonder whether the pending upgrade cycle for W11 will result in an average performance increase as a lot of people are forced to finally upgrade their ancient hardware, or whether a lot of people will just trade in for the lowest spec systems possible, depressing average scores further.

It seems to me that the data is highly suspect anyway, as the "average" user isn't running benchmarks and uploading the results to Passmark.

Comment Re:Nice lottery (Score 1) 105

Intel used to do this, at least in the places where I had friends working 30 years ago. It made for a really cut-throat work environment that no one really liked.

But at least the pay was good. I don't imagine that's the case at Meta.

I keep hoping Meta will implode but Twitter is still in business, so the dream of morally vacant billionaires getting their comeuppance from bad management remains a dream.

Comment Just what the world needs - constant GPT use (Score 1) 46

The world is on fire from climate change and they want to waste GPT cycles on constant conversation monitoring. Makes sense.

Hey Siri, pay attention to everything I say from now on, forever, but only use like 3% of it so I can update my grocery list without needing to grab my phone. Please don't track how much energy that uses.

Comment This premise has the "problem" backwards (Score 1) 73

If more CEOs were actually digitally "literate" AI adoption would be even lower, because it's mostly nonsense.

Companies are set to spend hundreds of millions on AI next year according to another story today, and I'd wager heavily that the resulting ROI will be a negative number.

But some gullible CEOs are being convinced to invest in tech that's not ready for prime-time just as they have always been because they live with constant financial FOMO.

Comment Nest didn't use AI, and still doesn't (Score 1) 86

I strongly dispute the idea that "Nest thermostat used AI in 2011". I've had various models of the Nest thermostat for over a decade, and they don't, and as far as I can tell, have never, used "AI".

It has some algorithms for working out your routines and preferences based on how you fiddle with it and some motion sensors, which is uses to generate a schedule for your temperature management. It's no more "AI" than a well-designed spreadsheet is - it's barely even an "expert system".

Comment How would that even work? (Score 1) 149

I don't necessarily believe Walmart or Kroger, but I don't see how "surge" pricing could even work in that environment, except the same way it works now in stores with old fashioned price tags.

You can't just change the displayed price on an item on the shelf and magically have it apply only to the shoppers who picked up the item after the change. If I pick up an item that shows $1 on the electronic display, then wander around the store for 30 minutes, if that price changes and then I go to the register, I'm going to complain that the price displayed when I picked it up was $1, and if they disagree I'm going to put it back. This is because I'm a fairly reasonable person - imaging the nightmare this would be for stores with all the Karens that shop at Walmart.

The worst they'll do is more easily change the prices each morning before the store opens, locking them in for the day, which is something they can already do - albeit on a smaller scale.

I could see them doing "surge" pricing only for things where you pay immediately, like the at the in-store Starbucks or McDonalds I suppose.

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