cbozeman

Well in fairness, the "G" does stand for "General".

It really is a masterpiece.

For a site chock full of logic-worshippers, we do seem to forget Occam's Razor too frequently.

My older brother and I were pirating software from BBSes before the World Wide Web existed.

Talk about being there when the deep magic was written.

LLMs have been of wonderful benefit to me for a variety of applications.

I'm unsure why you would want to the output to be less trustworthy and not more.

You can... you just need to make about $100,000,000,000 USD in profits each year, that's all.

Not even remotely true.

You're making the exact same argument everyone here is making, and that's because you're attempting to argue from technical parity / superiority. Windows isn't the dominant desktop OS because of it's technical superiority to Linux, it's dominant because of deeply entrenched compliance and industry reasons.

Healthcare, finance, legal, engineering (less so today, but still very sub-discipline dependant), and government all have very specific software needs that no one in their right mind will bother writing new software, or rewriting existing software, would do for 6% desktop market share.

EMR programs (Epic, Cerner, Meditech), Practice management and billing, Tax and compliance, Legal discovery and case-management tools, Niche hardware and it's control software

This is all the realm of Windows. Most of these applications are Windows-only (Win32 / .NET / ActiveX legacy), they're only certified and validated on Windows, and they're only contractually supported on Windows.

Even if Wolters-Kluwer rewrote the entire CCH ProSystem fx suite for Linux, now there's recertification, regulatory review, vendor retraining, staff retraining, potential issues with auditors and regulators, etc.

There's currently no upside large enough to justify: Vendor finger-pointing, Compliance risk, Training costs, Downtime risk

It's negative ROI all the way down.

Windows has to become so bad that switching to Linux for desktops overcomes all of the above.

Can you understand why someone would buy a $20 Mr. Coffee coffeemaker from Walmart and not a $2000 DeLonghi Eletta Explore superautomatic espresso machine?

Microsoft slowly becomes IBM.

That's "what then".

It's because Satya is worried about next quarter's earnings call, not what Windows looks like in ten years.

BillG had that big meeting with everybody at Microsoft awhile back and basically told them they had about 6-12 months to right the ship. Personally I hope they don't. Nothing makes me happier than arrogant jackasses being utterly destroyed by life, which is what will happen if they continue to enshittify Windows.

Satya seems to forget that Azure exists because of Windows. It's the deep integration into Windows that makes it worth anything, otherwise we could all switch to Linux / Mac OS X and run everything in AWS / GCP. You quite literally don't need Azure at all for anything if you don't have Windows-based machines.

Heavy sigh.

That's the joke, sir. Or ma'am.

Well he brought down his entire storage system. Twice.

I believe one time he had to bring in Wendell Wilson from Wendell Wilson Consulting, but more likely know to the Internet-at-large as the primary figure on Level1Techs YouTube channel.

I have no desire, nor inclination to dig through the thousands of videos LMG has produced on YouTube, but it's still up to my knowledge, and watching him fumble about with absolutely no clue is not only painful, but pathetic. Linus suffers from the same affliction many of my Ph.D.-holding friends have, which is that he believes because he knows a lot about putting together computers and electronics that he could handle building a large-scale data storage system.

These systems are complex, and to be well-built and maintained, they require domain-specific knowledge - no different than an OS programmer needs deep knowledge of C and C++, and increasing now, Rust.

It's a series of videos of someone way in over his head who should have brought in an actual expert - like Wendell from Level1Techs, or Patrick from ServeTheHome, from the get-go, instead of trying to do it himself.

Thanks to this website I learned that ABC 25 Waco TV (KXXV) has some incredibly good interlude music.

As someone mentioned, each channel has it's own unique URL. Create a Bookmarks / Favorites folder in your browser of choice and just add.

I have great confidence in our abilities to create more work for each other.

This is because we have a lot of people who don't like the idea of having to go work while others sit around on their ass getting checks. I get it. It's the most natural thing in the world, but we've got to evolve past it and we've got to evolve past it right now. Not 50 years from now, not 10 years from now, right now.

A shitload of people are going to be out of jobs very soon. Sooner than anyone thinks, actually.

And there's really only two paths this goes. We institute Universal Basic Income and some kind of program or programs to help you learn a skill that doesn't lend itself to automation well... or... the wealthy continue to horde everything and half the population starves to death... which doesn't happen, because when people get hungry, they start to kill the wealthy. And frankly even with a swarm of murderdrones, good luck stopping 200,000,000 people from killing you.

Evolving towards Star Trek's Federation is the way to go, I just hope rich people aren't too damn stupid to do it.

This just proves to me that we do not actually have a meritocracy, because only a fucking moron would say that, in that environment, and a moron would not rise to the level of partner in a legitimate meritocratic environment.

And he's not actually that great at that, if his storage server videos are any indication.

She's been using computers since the 80's (Apple ][e) but still is utterly clueless on how to operate a computer.

On it's surface, this is what it looks like, but in reality what's happening is that your mother learned what she needed to learn to do her job and the things she's interested in doing. Now, unfortunately, that is no longer enough. Now you need to have a decent understanding of how things work so you can know when to call bullshit.

What separates all of us from the general public is we're not content to just learn what's required to do our jobs - we must learn how the thing works.

I was at dinner many years ago with some friends, and one of them had invited an opinion piece writer from the New York Times and she and I got into - what she felt - was a slightly heated back and forth, but I was actually just stating the reality of the new paradigm in which we live, which is this:

The days of learning everything you'll need to learn to operate in the world in high school and college are over. They've been over. You're going to have to continually learn new skills, all the time, if you expect to maintain your job and position in the modern world. If you're not willing to do that, you will no longer be promoted and if you continue to maintain that perspective, you'll eventually be fired for someone that will dedicate hours after work to keeping abreast of all the changes.

She said that was, "inhumane" and "unrealistic". I told her it didn't matter what she thought it was, because this is the reality of Corporate America, and it's even more true in technology companies, and the absolute gospel in Big Tech. She got a little huffy, but frankly I don't give a fuck when people get huffy over hearing how the world actually works, because 1) I'm not causing it and 2) no one can stop it, or even slow it down. The best you can do is adapt or choose to lay down and die. And I'm not gonna fuckin' lay down and die.

Apparently, neither is your Mom, since she's learning how to discern bullshit scammer emails from legitimate communications, so I say, good on her, and I hope she keeps on keeping on!

I suspect that's a big reason. Remember about a decade back or so when Fox had four of it's upcoming television shows leaked onto public and private tracker sites about six months before their actual premieres?

Lucifer, Minority Report, Blindspot, and Carmichael were all leaked, and those shows were on different networks, which means it was likely a third-party company that was doing effects in post. I don't recall if it was ever sussed out what exactly happened and now they all got leaked, but it definitely made the industry a bit warier.

If you really want to take things to their logical conclusion, kill everyone who breaks the law.

Eventually you'll have no lawbreakers. Either because everyone's dead, or because everyone knows they'll be killed if they break the law.

Either way, you end up with a crimeless society.

Hopefully you can see the problem with "taking things to their logical conclusion."

I miss The Totally Rad Show on Revision3. I miss Revision3.

I miss Veronica Belmont and Patrick Norton.

I guess everyone's moved on to bigger and better things, though.

The personal computer revolution (kicked off in 1977 by the Apple II),

This is an oversimplification. Apple II was a huge part of it, but didn't kick it off. The real revolution was the IBM PC in 1981. It definitely did not kick it off single-handedly though, since you had the TRS-80, Commodore PET, and Altair 8800 before, or alongside the Apple II. You could argue the IBM 5100 I guess, but it was too expensive for most people.

And like I said above, the iPhone did not "kick off" the smartphone era. It was transformative, sure, but didn't kick it off.

IBM Simon, BlackBerry, Palm Treo, Symbian Phones, Windows Mobile, all came before it, and everyone could clearly see where the entire market was headed even in the early 2000s.

> 1. Parking apps are worse than parking meters.

I certainly don't agree with that one. I really don't miss having to pay for a fixed number of hours and then having to figure out what to do if I'm running late (or wasting money if I get back early).

Yeah... nothing more I love than having to scan a QR code to get an app from someone I don't know, then go through the signup process, then input a buncha personal information into an app... instead of just dropping 10 quarters into a metal stick and walking away for the next two hours.

> 4. Airline apps that are worse than just printing a boarding pass.

Unless the app is exceptionally horrible you can just export it to Apple/Android wallet which is much more convenient than having to find a printer.

Looking to the left or right of your desk is how you should be finding your printer. They're not gold bars. They're not expensive.

Musk is easily on the level of Jobs and arguably beyond him, not just financially, but on the scale of what they've done for Humanity as a whole.

SpaceX and Starlink just by themselves are enough to catapult him beyond Jobs, but you add on Tesla, which pretty much single-handedly pushed electric cars into mainstream culture, and he's easily there.

This isn't even really a subjective perspective, you could objectively argue it.

This is hilariously offbase and untrue.

Social media was already taking off long before the iPhone was on the scene. Facebook was open to the public in 2006, MySpace had already taken off like a rocket at that time, receiving more visitors than Google and Yahoo in the US. Twitter launched in 2006 as well.

The iPhone wasn't the first smartphone - not even close in fact. It was just "the best" in terms of user experience, and caused a rapid acceleration of development for Android, which had started to shift to mobile phone development in 2004 anyway, but really hit overdrive when the iPhone was debuted.

Windows Mobile 6 was out at this time - 2008 - and it was straight trash. I had a T-Mobile Wing that I got in 2006, I believe it had Windows Mobile 5.1. It's usability was a joke compared to the iPhone. This pushed Microsoft to create a mobile OS, and eventually they had something that could have been a real contender, because Windows Phone had a really fantastic interface that actually was a lot more usable than iOS or Android, but Microsoft made fuckup after fuckup in a series of events that almost defies belief.

Then they should use this amazing tool we have that contains damn near the entirety of accumulated knowledge of Humanity called The Internet.

You don't even have to search any longer. You can literally ask a conversational AI, like this...

How would a local government official obtain a domain name with .gov for their governmental office?

ChatGPT said:

A local government official can obtain a .gov domain for their governmental office by following these steps:

1. Verify Eligibility .gov domains are restricted to U.S. government entities, including federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial governments. Local government agencies, such as city or county offices, are eligible. 2. Choose a Domain Name The domain name should clearly reflect the governmental entity (e.g., cityname.gov or countyname.gov). Avoid abbreviations or acronyms unless commonly recognized. 3. Obtain Authorization The request must be authorized by the highest-ranking official of the government entity (e.g., mayor, county administrator). They will need to submit a letter verifying the legitimacy of the request. 4. Submit an Application Visit domains.dotgov.gov to apply. Create an account and complete the application form. Upload the signed authorization letter. 5. Await Review and Approval The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) reviews all applications. If approved, the domain is registered, and the office will receive account credentials. 6. Configure DNS and Website Once the domain is active, configure DNS settings. Set up email services and website hosting as needed. 7. Maintain Compliance Ensure the domain is actively used for government purposes. Keep contact information updated to prevent domain suspension. There is no cost for registering a .gov domain as of April 2021, since it is funded by the federal government.

There is literally no excuse for not knowing what to do in the year 2025.

No, people need to learn how the Internet is organized and named. It's the same as learning the Dewey Decimal system so you can navigate your local library.

It should be taught in school exactly the same way. It's more important in the year 2025 to know that, than it is the Dewey Decimal system, which is still taught in a majority of schools for some reason.

People should know what it means to be connected to a .gov, .com, .org, .edu, .net, .mil site, etc. I know we have a lot of new TLDs, but knowing the originals should be a bare minimum. This isn't rocket science, hell, most of these domains are almost self-explanatory even as three letter codes.

Yeah... and it's largely worked. That's the reason it's employed in the first place.

The average non-technical user doesn't "see" "[municipality].[state].gov". They aren't familiar with the concept of a domain hierarchy at all. They just memorize "[municipality_website]" and move on with their day.

You've just highlighted the problem. This is something every single human being in America should know, and arguably almost the entire world.

This falls directly under the rubric of Basic Computing Knowledge > Basic Internet Knowledge.

Every single time I see someone searching for "microsoft" or "apple" I immediately stop them and tell them, "You've already done most of the work. Microsoft and Apple are commercial entities. Add .com at the end, which is what .com means. Commercial. You're adding extra work for yourself."

Yes, a few people pop off at the mouth at which point I remind them ignorance is of a thing is easily remedied with a little give-a-damn, and saves everyone time and money.

Talk about a fucking miserable failure of education. I'm 44. I expected the generation 20 years younger than me to be impossibly skilled with computers to the point that I wouldn't hope to even match them, much less surpass them. Instead what we got was a world where we dumbed every goddamn thing down so even the most drooling moron can utilize it.

It's pretty disappointing, to put it mildly.

Hetzner is fine for what it is, you just need to know that it's all on you and only YOU.

YOU do the monitoring.

YOU do the troubleshooting.

YOU etc., etc.

If that doesn't appeal to you, or if you don't have the requisite knowledge, which I admit is fairly broad and encompassing, then it's not for you. For those of you that meet those checkboxes, they're a pretty amazing deal.

Where else could I get a 4c/8t CPU with 32 GB of RAM and four (4) 6TB disks for $38 a month? I really don't know of many places with that much hardware for that little cost. And yes, it's an Intel i7-3770, but I don't care. It's still a hell of a lot of hardware for not much price.