We should try making bribery illegal again. That would be fun.

The original showrunner eventually posted how he intended the story to go. It’s a fun quick read about the better show that never got made:

https://www.cyberspace5.net/agentrichard07/coda.htm

Surely this will win back all of the advertisers uncomfortable with what a cesspool of bigotry and conspiracy theories Xitter has become.

Really, which ones?

You basically have to break the installer to get it to work, which supports my point that the limit is an arbitrary way to exclude PCs made before a certain date from the next version. There is no technical reason MS can’t allow old hardware to work and no marginal cost to Microsoft to chose to do so. Like I said, while I don’t expect them to support everything forever, Microsoft also made their bed with their illegal business practices that got us here and hordes of malware infested EOL’ed computers are everybody’s problem now. They shouldn’t be adding to that problem for arbitrary marketing reasons.

I’m not against to fixed support periods, but they really ought to be minimums and not halted based on arbitrary dates, especially in the consumer space where these machines will run whether they get patched or not.

Slippery slope fallacy much?

This already happened during the last big Windows-on-ARM push w/ Win8. UEFI secure boot was required enabled on all new hardware but no requirement for user-added keys. It didn’t overtly restrict Linux (on MS’s part) but several manufacturers did lock down their devices. I don’t see any reason why that won’t happen again. It’s the norm in the cell phone and tablet ecosystem (which is a damn shame, but there may be hope on the regulatory front w/ right to repair laws gaining steam.)

The ink plan isn’t required, you can still use regular cartridges.

Because it’s forced obsolescence by a convicted monopolist. Microsoft is effectively withholding security updates from computers built before 2018 or so with the arbitrary TPM requirement to install Win11. While I don’t expect them to support everything forever, this is another step along their journey to make PCs like cellphones. Fixed support periods for no reason other than they want you buying new ones every x years. Next up will be widespread locked down bootloaders so you can’t install Linux if you wanted to. Throw away the old and buy new. Mamma needs more quarterly revenue.

Because then the ISPs would have to respond to changing customer preferences and spend their own money on infrastructure improvements to meet the new demand.

Or they can lobby/bribe the government to demand fees from wealthy tech companies.

Guess which one’s cheaper.

What we have here, is a company that fired its CEO for vague and cryptic reasons and a whole lot of speculation on what the real issue was. These are their own words:

https://openai.com/blog/openai-announces-leadership-transition

I’m not trying to defend Altman or the altruism of Microsoft. Although I would like to understand why this firing happened and why it was done in such an abrupt and dramatic manner.

If OpenAI doesn’t have stable, rational and deliberative leadership, none of what they claim to stand for matters. The board did an end-run around the chair and summarily fired Altman Friday afternoon without consulting with any other stakeholders beforehand. They still haven’t offered a coherent explanation for why they did what they did.

This smells like an ethics fight. Altman has been chasing monetization and releasing commercial products in a way the board doesn’t feel is ethical or in line with their charter.

Microsoft would very much like to continue commercializing this and they’re either going to neuter this board or take their ball and make their own ChatGPT with blackjack and hookers.

That’s why there are SLAPP-back laws.

He’s also got a habit of ignoring legal advice and running his mouth in public, so he’s likely going to end up writing another big check for that misadventure if his lawyers can’t talk him out of going through with it

I don’t think I can actually recall one either.

Maybe in a department store or mall in the 80s. It was just so deliberately bland I never noticed when it became less common.

Pushed a software update that disabled third party launchers and disallowed disabling future software updates.

It isn’t as magical (or accurate) as it looks. It’s just an extension of how various health tracking apps track food intake. There’s usually just one standard entry in the database for mashed potatoes based on whatever their data source thinks a reasonable default value should be. It doesn’t know if what you’re eating is mostly butter and cheese.

How useful a vague and not particularly accurate nutrition profile really can be is an open question, but it seems to be a popular feature for smartwatches.

That’s fine if you actually want it. I usually get the Costco deal for the family plan because we need the official MS Office apps and the terabyte storage per account is useful for us.

But Microsoft has gotten really obnoxious lately about upselling in the OS.

What if it’s a micro-replicator that makes marshmelons on demand? And what if I told you it could also make sausages, carrots, skinny cucumbers and taquitos like they have on those roller grill things at the gas station?

Not so stupid now.

It’ll do M&Ms too, you just have to shake it into your hand.

Pushing subscriptions and vendor lock-in. They harass you to use OneDrive so they can later harass you to pony up for a 365 subscription.

They’re not late. I’ve been using Fire Sticks for years and Amazon has been working hard the whole time to shove more and more ads all over the UI. The main row of apps gets smaller with every update and more and more ads are plastered around and between them to try to sell you more shit you don’t want or already have.

I managed to jailbreak mine before they locked them down and install a custom launcher so they’re actually usable, but the stock UI is god-awful. I’ll be replacing them once the next round of Apple TVs come out.

The Klingons oversell their whole honorable warrior schtick, especially to outsiders. They’re not a monoculture but it’s far less “cool” to be a nerdy scientist in Klingon society than, say, Starfleet, but they’ve still got them. They’re just not celebrated to the same degree. They pay for that by being a bit behind the tech curve, imo.