I wish I could say that I spent even 5% of my time on Windows troubleshooting it, within the last 5 years. Linux rant incoming (but not against it)
A decade ago I would have agreed. In a couple years I will also agree again, because W11 is pretty awful. However, W10 after the first year has been really, really solid for me. The few issues I have had were hardware related and a fresh install solved anything angry that lingered.
On the flip side, I have a home server that I want to run a bunch of local services on. Anything past Plex starts getting extremely difficult extremely quickly, and I have been playing with Linux on and off for the last decade as well (2014 was actually one of my first projects getting Linux on a laptop). I have trashed hundreds of Linux installs, I just trashed one a couple months ago and now my steady reliable Plex server is am expensive box until I can take the time to reinstall and re-set up this now decimated Linux install.
I have issues with both Operating Systems. I fucking despise Linux so often of the time I’m using it because I want it to do something very simple and basic and it forces me to learn its unconventional and weird systems where there’s no “right” way to something with 3,521 ways to accomplish it (but don’t do those 5,320 other ways, that’s the wrong way depending on who you ask.). In many ways, that’s the beauty of it. In many ways, there is nothing wrong with having to learn how to use your computer. At the same time, that is the very thing that I attribute to the failure of Linux (both Linux and its wider adoption). If you are familiar, you may see a parallel between iPhone and Android here. One is a more walled off garden (Windows/iPhone) and the other is a looser but more complex system (Linux/Android), but at the core ONE set of users CAN’T switch because they don’t want to learn the other side. They are familiar with their swiping patterns, so switching from an iPhone is reprehensible, how could we possibly ever re-learn something? (FWIW, I’m not saying this is all iPhone/all Android users. My partner has stated she can never switch to Android, because she took forever to learn the iPhone. This is not the only person I know with this sentiment.)
With that in mind, it becomes clear that we have made computers accessible to everyone. Linux is at the furthest opposite end of accessibility for anyone who needs to do something outside of installing a program from a package manager. There is a reason so many Linux GUI’s specifically try to look like Windows (and MacOS). It’s because those Operating Systems have pretty much solved the issue of the unknowledgeable user. Just the simple fact that someone can’t plug in a hard drive and have it work every time, they have to go into a specific folder and write a specific arbitrary un-memorable UUID and tell it to always mount it on boot. And that’s not even getting started on something like networking. Or GPU drivers, and we can not even try to deny that this is probably the most common bane amongst even well versed Linux users.
I’m sorry, that is really stupid. In the name of security you are sacrificing basic functionality, which is what inherently will prevent this O.S. from being used. I think I only need to point to the Steam Deck to prove my point – make Linux easy and functional and people will use it. Lo-and-behold, the Steam Deck requires ZERO Linux knowledge and you can use it as a fully fledged PC. And even despite all of that effort, people still had issues setting and forgetting their password. THAT is the bar we are working with here.
Which of course, brings us to Windows (and in a way MacOS but this isn’t really about them). For Windows, you are sacrificing security for functionality for the unknowledgable user.
That said I’ve been on Linux for ages so a lot of the issues I ran into on windows were frustrations with knowing how easy it would have been to resolve technical issues in Linux.
Windows users, scratch that, COMPUTER users in general have the exact same issue, but for their familiarity. You are familiar with Linux and have memorized the workflow to get your reliable answers. The average person is familiar with Windows and has learned that right clicking for the context menu allows them to open the settings. There is a literal SEA of knowledge between these two users, which appears to me to be the fundamental issue with Linux. You have to learn it, actively. This in itself isn’t necessarily an issue, but it is a huge inhibitor.
What it comes down to is project reliability. When I spin up a Linux project I want it to be pretty much permanent, but I very quickly learned that it is very difficult to keep it stable. I have re-scrapped installs more times on Linux in 10 years than I have in Windows/MacOS for over 20. I have had more frustration, failure, and time waste on Linux than either of the others. Honestly, I hate it and I think I hate its philosophy too. Which is silly, because the whole point of Linux is that it very easily can be LTS, often specifically is. But that doesn’t matter, because as I USER I am not stable. I don’t know what to do, therefore I will break things. It could be as simple as trying to follow instructions for a project online, and doing all of the exact steps listed, getting an error, and now the user is stuck unable to progress. They have also changed things that they no longer know about. It’s only a matter of time before something conflicts and causes issues.
But goddamn, when it does work and make sense it is really nice. I just don’t feel like I should have to know the contents of a textbook to accomplish that. There needs to be a middleground between telling your computer exactly to a T what you want from it, and from having an OS that actively inhibits the more heavy duty tasks due to imposed limitations. Don’t get me wrong, I have no love for Windows. I’m only using it now because it’s more reliable with the types of programs I use for it (VR, Photoshop, and editing mostly) both in software and in reliability. At the same time, I would never use Windows as a server PC again despite how frustrating I can find Linux to be, because quite frankly Windows is much worse at the same job, and the deeper you look into these niches the fewer and fewer Windows is able to perform well at.
Windows can do Photoshop. It can run a Plex server. It can run Stable Diffusion. All of these things at the surface level, IMO, are easier to do on Windows - you download an .exe (or clone from .Git), you run it, it downloads stuff and it works.
Linux can do Plex. It can also install hundreds of extensions, such as DizqueTV. Windows cannot do this. Linux can run Stable Diffusion, and you can configure it to do even more things that are frankly, nearly impossible to accomplish reasonably on Windows (training data on Linux is SO much easier.). Linux can also configure networking, using things like NGinx Proxy Manager. Windows can’t really accomplish this to the same effective degree that it can be in Linux.
What this comes down to is utilizing the tools best available for the job. I would be an idiot to try and host an extremely customized Plex server through Windows, because I’d be severely limiting what extreme customization I can do.
Similarly, I would be an idiot to try and use Photoshop on Linux.
You can do both. That doesn’t mean it’s worth doing.
Tl;Dr easy is relative to each O.S. and the abilities of the average user. Windows is much better at some things than Linux ever will be. Likewise, Linux will be better at things than Windows ever will be. Heh. Lemme just say, there’s a reason Linux users have to use VM’s…
I also haven’t seen any practical advantage to using LLM prompts vs. traditional search engines in the general case:
For general temporary facts I would agree. Even Amazon’s surmized reviews, it can be handy to know that “Adhesive issues” is commonly sighted… but I’d learn that from reading the reviews anyway… Like, a lot of the time it comes down to AI being used when the human should do their own due diligence. I will even admit to this in the very next paragraph.
I find AI to be especially good at things I am not, like math. I am very good at estimations, and I can work out some stuff over time. However, I am much slower compared to asking “I currently make 2.1-Z a month and I have 397-Z earning that interest. I would like to make 65-Z a month, how much do I need earning interest to make that?” (Roughly 13,100 btw) and getting that answer along with the formula showing its work. It spits out the answer in the amount of time it took me to work out that verbal question, both of which were far faster than the time it takes me to pull up a calculator and do the same math. It’s not that I can’t, it just takes a lot of time that could be better spent actually doing the thing I want to do, which is how many months based off what I earn will it take to reach that number.
Similarly, this reigns true for a lot of things with “facts.” Perpetual facts or immutable facts are the best use for AI. In my opinion based on experience, of course.
A fact about a song will always be in the key it was created in. A key will always have a specific set of scales that can be used with it. Math will always be the answer to an equation. These are, for the most part, immutable facts. A person on the other hand, will not always be their age, or even living, nor will their net worth stay the same. Let’s not even get started on the weather! These are temporary facts.
Quite a few people tend to ask AI temporary facts (rightfully so, it’s what we would like to do on a day to day basis for casual questions), but and it gets a lot of flack for not doing a great job at it (again rightfully so since it’s a basic question.) But I have found that AI is actually quite strong at perpetual facts. When time is short and at the end of the day I just want to jam to my favorite songs, I can get a quick reminder of the key and scales I can use to play along with. On my own I know and can remember these things, but asking a question and getting an answer possibly even faster is really nice.
Not to be pro-AI – In this case I really think it comes down to using the tool you have. We live in the present and the future, so it seems ridiculous to rely on something trained on data rooted in the past and expecting that it will always be that. Hence, immutable facts tending to be more reliable to work with when using AI.
I like tech, so I have used and played with local LLM’s and Stable Diffusion models and worked on a model based on my own art of Zentangles, I don’t think I would ever actively rely on this technology for anything more than cursory fun when I’m short on time and energy, or as a supplement to something that I, frankly, am going to take far too long to learn and will forget in the span of a couple months when I no longer need it. I don’t exactly feel the need to memorize the 300,000 Excel sheet tricks, but I will sure as shit ask BarGemeni about it. Using it to confirm my estimations to see that I was roughly accurate compared to an AI that is roughly accurate is good enough for me for some quick and dirty math.
Ultimately that’s what the LLM-AI debate is for me. Relying on it for anything that is ever changing, using it for anything more than just basic fun is setting yourself up for a bad time. Using it here and there as a calculator or for some non-important details about something that has remained static since the dawn of time? You can net yourself some pretty nice futuristic “Hell yeah’s”. Packing these things up into little boxes like supplanting a phone (or adding it to your phone), using it to create non-existent support (both support staff and supporting terrible products to trick people into buying it), or adding it to rice cookers and refrigerators is… the direction expected but not the one I was hoping for.
Frankly, it’s alarming that you have apparently had to ask multiple people this question:
I’ve asked people who criticize him to quote any passage, even as short as a single sentence, either uttered or written by him that they consider wrong.
And yet all you ever needed to do was take a glance at his twitter to see the vile things he has said. And these are just a few from a literal 5 minute search, because if you actually listen or read what he’s saying, it is clear what he is saying. He is a sad, angry man who promotes hate under the guise of “self-help”. "Did you know that taking care of yourself is good for you? Oh and by the way,
So here’s another to really hammer it in: axios.com/…/youtube-demonetized-jordan-peterson-v… which even links the video where he says it himself, so you don’t have to take someone else writing what he said to believe it.
There are a lot of tanky posts coming from lemmy.ml. Their whole purpose seems to be to troll and spread their bullshit far and wide. They are nearly as bad as the alt-right. They argue in bad faith and celebrate authoritarian oppression. The beehaw mods might want to consider defederating.
For what it’s worth, I have a couple accounts on Fediverse. I’m wolf_shadowheart on Kbin and SlrPnk.net, and the two of those act as the “unfiltered fediverse” and here on Beehaw is much more community discussion oriented. While our threads about specific brand new games or deep-cut niche content isn’t very full, we have lots of early-Internet question answer threads which are very nice.
Slrpnk.net isn’t defederated from much but I also use it the least. Note: The pnk.net community itself is great. It’s the wider fedi it’s attached too. There’s so much… trash? Lemmy.World may have the most users, but it has the least soul. They seem to be the redd-t equivalent of those communities, but with far fewer content posts and mostly comment posts (which I get, that’s me too.) and unfortunately as a result, these communities get heavily skewed by the type of guy on the left (the critic) while most of us are just on the right trying to enjoy stuff and maybe talk about some of the deeper implications.
Kbin is on the full opposite end with no moderation. I don’t really use blocking features, but goddamn if I have to do it to kill spam accounts. When it’s good, it’s nice and I use it in tandem with Beehaw. When it’s bad it’s really rough (just spam mostly) it gets really hard.
Anyway Tl;DR using multiple accounts isn’t a bad thing as it lets you experience multiple levels of curation. The way I use them, Beehaw is most curated, Kbin is second most curated, Slrpnk.net is least curated.
I think much of Beehaw is heavily leftist. I don’t think many here are specifically against communism and recognize that there are governments abusing it and their power. With the government siding with the people over corporations being the core reason for Anti-Capitalists, my experience Tankies are no different in that regard. It’s the same breed of fascism that failed Capitalism, Communism, and Socialism. i.e. Authoritarian Mass Murderers.
There is no defending that. Full stop. And that is why Tankies are bad, just like Alt-Right Capitalist Religious Fascism. They are celebrating the exact same thing for their version of the exact same results. I can’t really see how acknowledging this is anti-communist, I would argue it’s quite the opposite since they are inherently a threat to it, given the history.
Yeah it seems Ernest has been on another break. From what I’ve heard, Mbin is a little combative in how/why they created it and the alternative ones never really called to me. I’d agree with you though. The main issue with Kbin right now is honestly just that accounts can be created freely, and that’s only because it makes it so easy for spam accounts to post about selling/buying drugs online flooding /m/tech and /m/opensource and a bunch of others.
However, I do think a push was made recently that we can ask to take over dead magazines (subs), so community can sort of step up now if that gets seen and approved.
Ahh so sorry to hear! Yeah, I admit the spam has been pretty bad lately and it’s definitely made the already small community quite a bit harder to participate in. We will find something, someday, all 4 real human beings of us!
As a result, I now know that a lot of men from my local area served in south Africa in the 19th century, who stole everything that wasn’t nailed down.
Growing up going to museums this seemed to be a common occurrence. Theft and donations of artworks, which had been stolen at some point. For the art, I don’t mind as much as they were always pretty wild stories ranging from fires and recovery to theft and lost and refound – it’s like art heists where half of the history is what it’s gone through before it’s “final” resting place in the museum. But the personal items… those always hit different.
I think a really cool museum concept would be having contemporary cultures send in objects of their culture, because much like the little trinkets robbed back then, current little trinkets of today are just a bit different everywhere you go. We just don’t realize it until 10-20 years from now, or 100.
Haha glad that I brought it up on your radar! I like this one cause it seems much more medically oriented, vs. Neurolink existing “just because it can”.
Which normally, I don’t really have an issue with. I think it’s great to do things just because we can (within reason ofc!), but I am definitely more skeptical of the fraud-Hyperloop flamethrower space-car man.
I’ve had conversations with this person before, in my opinion many of the things they fault Valve for are… extreme nitpicking.
Also, IMO Corsair’s patents are BS and are drastically inhibiting accessibility controller availability. Their stranglehold on something as simple as buttons on the backside of a controller shouldn’t be lauded.
Taking his ethics and actions out of the equation for a second – I would have no issues with his businesses weren’t scamming states out of legitimate transportation and fucking with people just because he could.
While dangerous, I’m not really against the idea of selling flamethrowers, kind of. It is kind of the American right, which may be dumb, but fuck if I have anything to say about it. And while it produces a lot of space junk, I’m not against Starlink or SpaceX. especially the former since it does do a lot of good. Coverage in the middle of the U.S. is not good, and anything more is good.
Ultimately what it comes down to is the fact that the more money tends to side on less regulation, and reintroducing ethics and actions into the mix he is abusing that. The flamethrower ploy could have been snark against the United States for not having regulation on that (if it were something that were actually important, that may have mattered…), and similarly the Hyperloop scheme could have been some form of commentary on how easy it is for a billionaire to manipulate voters with obvious pipe-dreams, then gone ahead with the high speed train plan.
Instead, he gets butthurt and lashes out. I know we’re on the same page, if anything I’m disappointed specifically because he is in a position to be doing a lot of good, has convinced some people that he is.
There are a lot of non-Apple options for a very similar experience. I have a Fiio X1 Gen 2 that I like. They’re not widely available new anymore but they are still about the same price as when I got it.
Hero’s Hour is a pixel art game that’s about building an army. Really solid indie game! Also a fan of Revita, it’s a roguelike but done very well and is mostly unique.
Hello everyone, I have an idea to make a map with fog of war, when you walk you explore new areas and points of interest but you can’t see unexplored areas. I’m not sure if it’s a good idea, what is your opinion?
FWIW I don’t want to pay $30, so you still have a market!
There’s also an app for iPhone that’s similar, called Super Local. Don’t let it get you down – look at what features these are missing and implement your own! All sorts of visual designs, custom mapping, all kinds of stuff could be done :)
I use a safety razor (~$25) and a pack of 100 is around $5, definitely much better than the Gillette line, and honestly I like it more than even the cheaper “good” razors like Dollar Shave or Harry’s.
Overall, me too. However, I do find it very interesting and there are a number of compelling stories out there.
There’s a YouTuber Kendall Rae who does a video about an individual on this topic, there’s also this channel www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4XCB1NgoJg that has a wide array. IIRC, this one is the one that seems the most famous example.
In many cases I think parents coax the kids. In other cases it could just be kids being weird, likely most of them. But… it does make you wonder, where does that weirdness come from?
Developing interactivity is effort and an investment. Most developers put up a simple loading screen, maybe some text like rotating tips, and a loading indicator. Until 2015 a patent on interactive loading screens may have made developers and publishers cautious and decide against developing interactivity....
I have a couple. For the Playstation 2 (and whatever other console) the game for Treasure Planet had a loading screen where you could manipulate how you flew passed starts.
Surprised to not see the Dragon Ball Z games mentioned.
There was another game I was trying to think of, but I got distracted and lost it.
Windows 11 is now an ad platform--this is why we're here (www.ghacks.net)
The writing is on the wall–I suspect the next Windows OS will be a subscription service. Gather your ISOs while ye may.
Web publishers brace for carnage as Google adds AI answers (www.washingtonpost.com)
Archive link
Should You “Put Your Life In Order” Before Criticizing the World? (www.currentaffairs.org)
Karl Marx’s home life was a hot mess. Jordan Peterson can’t keep his room clean. So what?
lemmy.ml Tankies
There are a lot of tanky posts coming from lemmy.ml. Their whole purpose seems to be to troll and spread their bullshit far and wide. They are nearly as bad as the alt-right. They argue in bad faith and celebrate authoritarian oppression. The beehaw mods might want to consider defederating.
What Are a Museum’s Obligations When It Shows a ‘Problematic’ Artist? (www.nytimes.com)
Gabe Newell, the Man Behind Steam, Is Working on a Brain-Computer Interface (futurism.com)
Elon Musk’s Neuralink reports trouble with first human brain chip (arstechnica.com)
Dell Data Breach
Has anyone else received an email from Dell about a data breach? I’ve gotten three messages just today. What’s going on?...
I used an original iPod in 2024, and it was pretty fun (www.spacebar.news)
Microsoft closes Tango Gameworks, Arkane Austin and others (www.gamingonlinux.com)
Am I the only person that feels that retro games are better?
Less DRM, smaller filesizes, no stupid anticheat, and no always online bs. Anyone agree with me?
Firefox user loses 7,470 opened tabs saved over two years after they can’t restore browsing session (www.tomshardware.com)
A map app for mobile phones with fog of war
Hello everyone, I have an idea to make a map with fog of war, when you walk you explore new areas and points of interest but you can’t see unexplored areas. I’m not sure if it’s a good idea, what is your opinion?
Why are many men growing beards again ? (lemmy.ml)
Yesterday I passed a barbershop and saw ads on their wall outside of men with beards and short hair. It is a revival or saving electricity ?
The children who remember their past lives (www.washingtonpost.com)
Archive link...
Sanders Rips Colleagues for Attacking Student Protesters Instead of Netanyahu | Common Dreams (www.commondreams.org)
cross-posted from: lemmy.ca/post/20474460...
Interactive Loading Screens - High Hell
Developing interactivity is effort and an investment. Most developers put up a simple loading screen, maybe some text like rotating tips, and a loading indicator. Until 2015 a patent on interactive loading screens may have made developers and publishers cautious and decide against developing interactivity....
I found a beautiful alternative to MusicBee (audio manager & player)! (lemmy.sdf.org)
Link: tauonmusicbox.rocks...