Also in the context of working, this isn’t just computers. It’s tools in general, and a computer is a type of tool. Problems with your saw? Problems with your batteries? Problems with access to electricity and your extension cords not being long enough? Problem with losing your 10mm sockets? If you’re a trucker or driver the problem could be your vehicle. Etc etc etc.

This article is stupid. Tools break, they always have and always will. The tools we have now are better than they have ever been. They will probably keep getting more and more efficient, but they will still break. Because tools break.

Linus was ahead of the game on this one. Nvidia should start building data centers next to public pools. Cool the systems and warm the pools.

Yup. I can say for sure that SSDs were certainly a game changer, but now we have systems with like 10x the processing power that operate at the same speeds because the power has been spent on poorly optimized code and bloatware.

Sigh… I’m going to have to start fucking around with Linux, aren’t I?

The worst part is that Windows can do that, but Microsoft insists on enshittifying it. Like Windows 11 isn’t that terrible if it wasn’t for all of the data collection and advertisements and other shit.

I miss the Windows 7 days where you could download a stripped down ISO that was just the OS. It launched your programs of choice and didn’t suck up your battery running unnecessary junk.

Ahh yes. Reminds me of my teenage years. Experimenting with Marijuana, pirated MP3s, and the Milkdrop visualization plugin for Winamp. Those were good times… Real good times.

It is however acceptable at the supermarket when a product says “Made with 100% white meat chicken”

Cool, thanks for the info. This is something I have wanted to setup for a little while now, I just didn’t understand all of the nuances.

I can wrap my head around the secret being stored in your device, but what happens when you go to a different device?

Let’s say for example, I am at my friend’s house, and for one reason or another, I don’t have my phone. My Gmail account is passkey locked, but I need to check my email from my friend’s laptop. Would that require that I install passkey on their laptop, and log in to my passkey account? Does that also mean that if I forget to log out of passkey, they can access all of my accounts correlated with my passkey account? If that’s the case, what happens if my passkey account is compromised? All of my accounts are linked to a single point of failure?

A friend of mine had to break out some kind of USB dongle to log into his Google account on a new machine the other day. Is that a form of passkey? What happens if that dongle gets lost/stolen/broken? Or what if you just forgot it at home? Are you SOL?

I am all for more security and less password remembering, but I hop around a lot of computers.

I think you can install all the normal streaming apps on Kodi as well. It definitely takes more know-how than using something like a Roku or smart TV, but FOSS be like that sometimes.

Raspberry Pi and Kodi?

I have this problem with ChatGPT and Powershell. It keeps referencing functions that do not exist inside of modules and when I’m like “that function doesn’t exist” its like “try reinstalling the module” and then I do and the function still isn’t there so I ask it for maybe another way to do it, and it just goes back to the first suggestion and it goes around in circles. ChatGPT works great sometimes, but honestly I still have more success with stack overflow

I put “Chaotic Neutral Technomancer” as my title at work and HR said I had to change it.

People keep asking about storage and that’s a valid concern. I remember a while ago Linus made a video about a crypto that can be mined with storage. So he made a huge raid of old drives. I wonder if something like this could or would be practical for a decentralized storage solution. Like… Encourage people to set up NAS’s that can be used sort of like torrent seeding for a decentralized video platform and reward them with crypto.

I dunno… Just thinking out loud.

Edit: Jeez hit a nerve with the crypto thing, huh? Then what’s the solution? Storage costs money. So ads? Subscription cost?

It looks like it’s just security updates, not feature updates. So I would take this as a win. If a 0-day is discovered, being able to update systems to fix it without a restart is fantastic. I know plenty of people who avoid restarting their computer if they see the update icon in their system tray. If we are talking security, these people could be leaving themselves vulnerable for days/weeks. Being able to push security patches without restarts is a big win.

“Now it can see humans, identify who they are, and decide who to kill without ever consulting a human.”

This is the technology that I am not confident in, and it makes it the most terrifying. Remember all the issues we have had with facial recognition not working very well on people of color? So instead of having cops misidentify POC and killing them, we will have robots that do it but faster and more efficiently. And if you thought nobody was held accountable before, I got some bad news for you.

If anybody is curious, here are the details on how to do that: https://www.pdq.com/blog/how-to-block-the-windows-11-upgrade/

If you want to take it a step further, write a Powershell script that checks that the registry entry is what you want it to be, and then changes it if it is not. Then create a scheduled task to run at login that runs the script. That way if/when Microsoft pushes an update that switches the registry entry back, the scheduled task will flip it back after installing updates/rebooting/logging in.

I am currently fighting this battle with New Outlook in Win 11 23H2. It’s really annoying. I can get rid of it with registry entries, but when windows does updates it reverts the registry changes back. So scheduled task it is. It would be great if there was an Intune configuration profile to deal with this, but that would go against Microsoft’s current methods of shoving new products down your throat.

I will definitely check it out. A lot of what I have heard is from the podcast “Darknet Diaries”. I feel like it is pretty commonly known around here but, man… It exposed me to a lot of things that I did not know were going on. And that’s what is currently public information. What is not public information is probably way way worse. Another commenter below mentioned something about countries spying on countries, but what is currently happening in the digital warfare realm is way more than spying. As the OP article goes into, we are talking about attacks on infrastructure. That is not spying. The line needs to be drawn somewhere. Like… Attempted murder is a crime. Why is attempted hacking on infrastructure that would kill a bunch of people not a war crime?

The concept of war is changing rapidly in the age of information. Why would you deploy boots on the ground when you can use technology to break down a country from the inside?

Not the batch of WD Red SSDs I got in 2022. 3 of the 4 have failed. I’m assuming the 4th is going to die any day now. Fortunately WD honors their warranties, and only one drive died at a time so the my RAID was able to stay intact.

I feel like I must have gotten 4 from the same bad batch or something. One dying felt like bad luck, but when another died every 3 months it seemed like more than a coincidence. And none of the replaced ones have died, just the original batch.

So how long does an SSD last? YMMV.

The whole “Is hacking an act of war?” thing needs to be seriously reconsidered. Of course, if the US decided it was, they would be guilty of so many acts of war. And it’s not just the US. Everybody is trying to hack everybody and acting like killing people by bringing down a power grid is somehow different than killing people by dropping a bomb. The outcome is the same: You did something that intentionally killed people.

Of course saying that hacking is an act of war opens up a huge can of worms. Suddenly small time hackers are being charged with or framed for war crimes.

It’s a delicate issue, but I think it is worth revisiting.

I know entirely too many people who don’t use the hand scanner, and it’s crazy to me. It is by far the most efficient way to shop. I get irrationally angry when there are people in the self checkout line with a whole cart of groceries. This line is not for you. Get with the times.