It’s true, but the effect is still much less pronounced on Linux than Windows. Opening a web browser, for instance, is usually a lot faster in Linux than opening the same browser in Windows.

Part of the problem is everyone building on common libraries that themselves build on libraries, leading to layer after layer of abstraction with a little loss of efficiency at each one. Since most software is cross-platform, this affects multiple operating systems. And needing to build for multiple platforms is itself one of the drivers of all this abstraction.

The same with the incredibly powerful CPUs and huge amounts of RAM we all have now. These are little supercomputers, and everything in Windows takes longer than it did 25 years ago on machines with a tiny fraction of the power.

Deleting files and folders in Windows is the one that gets me. It’s so incredibly slow, and if you try to cancel it manages to take even longer “Cancelling…”.

Interestingly they did the same with Word 97: loaded Office at startup so the individual Office applications would seem to launch faster.

Hairdryers are quite loud too. It’s a stretch to describe even the sonic boom as “silent”.

The headline is misleading. It’s quieter, but far from silent.

The Pixel 7 will receive OS updates from Google until October 2027, and the Pixel 6a until July 2027. So they both have more than two years of support left. I think the period of Graphene OS support matches Google support.

https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/4457705?hl=en

Canadians have always traveled to the USA to to a bit of sneaky bargain hunting. I wouldn’t be surprised to see this start going the other way.

We need more of this in all countries.

When you do eventually switch, I’d recommend getting your own domain and using an email address at that domain, so that your email address becomes independent of your email provider. It will make it easier to switch again in future should you need to, because you can keep the same email address and use it with a new provider.

He’s wealthy though.

Ah, but those “intelligent” people cannot be very intelligent if they are not billionaires. After all, the AI companies know exactly how to assess intelligence:

Microsoft and OpenAI have a very specific, internal definition of artificial general intelligence (AGI) based on the startup’s profits, according to a new report from The Information. … The two companies reportedly signed an agreement last year stating OpenAI has only achieved AGI when it develops AI systems that can generate at least $100 billion in profits. That’s far from the rigorous technical and philosophical definition of AGI many expect. (Source)

To do it based on intent would create some difficult grey areas - for example, video game creators would have to try to make their games as compelling as possible without passing a more or less vague threshold and breaking the law. The second approach of working on the ways different types of data can be used sounds more promising.

How would you identify the kinds of algorithms that should be banned, as opposed to all the other kinds of algorithms? I have a feeling that would be tricky.

This site has an archive of all the NYT Connections games:

https://connections.swellgarfo.com/archive

$199 now. Still seems a bit overpriced.

I was joking. Don’t do this.

I managed to get in and change mine last night. So you just have to keep hammering that refresh button until you overcome whoever this asshole is that’s DOSing the site. Maybe even do it on several computers, and write a script to help.

Edit: Joke, don’t do.

I don’t trust Bryan Lunduke as a source. He fell into QAnon conspiracy-type stuff and MAGA politics. Not a sign of good judgment.

Once again ordinary people in the West are saved from affordable, low-pollution living, and Western companies are saved from having to compete.

You know what they meant by the first one. The second one is about people not being interested in dumb products like the Logitech AI mouse. Corporations are all jamming AI into their products and marketing materials not because users like it (they don’t) but because they hope it will attract investors. So AI is more interesting to investors than to people who don’t want it in their mouse.

The problem is that Librewolf’s continued existence depends on Firefox continuing to exist. And while I like Vivaldi (but not its closed-sourceness), if all browsers end up being Chromium-based, Google still has an effective monopoly on web standards.

It’s just about marketing. People don’t know about what they don’t hear about, and the wealthier companies can make sure people hear about them. There’s no budget for that with regular Fediverse sites.

Interesting topic but what a terribly written article. Did they just ask ChatGPT a few questions and paste together random chunks of the answers? It keeps suggesting there are downsides, but never even names one.

I’ve been nervous of phoning people since long before cellphones were invented, precisely because it always seemed rude to make someone’s phone ring and demand a conversation when they’re in the middle of whatever they’re doing. It’s interesting to see more people coming to see it like this.

Once it develops further I would genuinely consider using it as my main OS on my laptop.

Don’t hold your breath. In 23 years they have got as far as R1 Beta 4.

Some of the old LG phones (the V series) were known and sold for the quality of their audio. If you can find one of those on eBay it should be pretty cheap.

Yeah, this one report from Puget Systems doesn’t outweigh the many reports, going back years now, researched in detail by Steve, and confirmed by sources at Intel’s biggest customers, of problems with Intel’s CPUs. This report is just such an outlier. Intel has lost trust by building faulty CPUs for so long, being apparently unable to act quickly to resolve the issues, and covering up the problems to keep its share price up and dodge the cost of RMAs.

They should be thinking of the loss involved in replacing these CPUs as an investment in Intel’s long-term reputation. But instead they’re thinking “how can we make the line go up this quarter?” and cutting staff. It’s shortsighted, as all public companies are these days.

I’d like an e-ink monitor, but there’s a lack of competition and the prices remain too high. A 12" monitor for $849 is not worth it.

You and everybody else.

It’s useful when programming for generating straightforward code and giving high-level advice on well-trodden topics, though you do have to check both. And typing in questions does help me clarify my thinking, so it also serves as that premium rubber duck. Nothing I couldn’t do without it, but sometimes I do find it convenient and helpful.

It’s hilarious – and also a bit sad – that Tan and his ilk assume that someone must be paying me to write. They apparently cannot imagine any human motivation beyond money. It does not occur to them that a person could simply be inspired to action because they care about things like community, democracy and truth.

See also: “if people weren’t under threat of unemployment ruining their lives, they wouldn’t be motivated to work.” Many right-wingers seem to have no conception of being motivated to do something because it’s good to do.

I think the point is just that young people don’t participate as much as they would because they don’t have the money for it. In previous decades young people had more money to spend.

I think once it has taken a profile of the voice it no longer requires you to be facing the person because it can now recognize that voice among the noise. The AI but is taking an imprint of the voice and then extracting it.

What’s especially troubling is that many human programmers seem to prefer the ChatGPT answers. The Purdue researchers polled 12 programmers — admittedly a small sample size — and found they preferred ChatGPT at a rate of 35 percent and didn’t catch AI-generated mistakes at 39 percent.

Why is this happening? It might just be that ChatGPT is more polite than people online.

It’s probably more because you can ask it your exact question (not just search for something more or less similar) and it will at least give you a lead that you can use to discover the answer, even if it doesn’t give you a perfect answer.

Also, who does a survey of 12 people and publishes the results? Is that normal?

Why does this article use the term “real ads” every time instead of just “ads”? Is this just weird or does it have a technical meaning?

I dunno, tunnel vision is when you can’t see outside the tunnel. The problem is you apparently can.

Edit: Oh, do they mean you can see into the tunnel? That sort of makes more sense.

Weird coincidence: Microsoft laid off their QA team too, and a few years later Windows feels buggier than ever.

tl;dw: x86 processors have been doing speculative execution of branches for years in an insecure way. New variants of the Spectre vulnerability keep being found and patches issued. Each patch reduces performance, and the performance reduction is cumulative. The video accuses Intel of adopting a fundamentally flawed architecture for the sake of pursuing performance, a cheat that they eventually got called out for. It’s not so much performance loss, the video claims, as performance that shouldn’t have been available in the first place in a secure design. (And AMD I guess cut some of the same corners to compete with Intel.)

For any x86 CPU these days you should not expect the performance shown in the initial reviews, because problems always come to light and get fixes that reduce it. It happens to AMD too, but Intel seem to be slightly worse for this.