Posts by Adair

Re: Original battery factory would supposedly have provided 3000 jobs...

And the whole setup controlled by an AI. No unreliable human staff. So cheap. What could possibly go wrong?

Re: The sad fact is ...

I would agree with you, except that 'status' doesn't imply 'slavery'.

And yet our technological efforts are largely about replicating a slave based economy, albeit where people are replaced by things.

Yet at the same time our 'capitalist' economies constantly end up impoverishing, and reducing to effective slave status, increasing proportion of populations, whilst enriching a tiny proportion of societies (effectively the 'slave owners').

'Status' undoubtedly plays a role, but that aspect of human culture doesn't really describe the process of reducing others to utter vulnerability and powerlessness

Re: I'm somewhat disappointed...

Already done, there's a business in my village printing 3D novelty soaps. You can have one of your own head. Been running for several years.

Re: print shops v ink catridges

Online "print shops" are a thing. Then they send the prints to my house. :-)

Re: Maybe follow the well trod road ...

Yes, we're talking about a 'big problem', and big problems usually require big, and costly, solutions. But if the problem really is a big one then the cost is usually deemed to be worth paying.

We're talking international cooperation here. Always easy to establish and maintain!

Re: Cloud

'Nice in theory, in practice ...'

Governments don't generally run major infrastructure technologies 'in house', and if they do it usually isn't for long and often in times of national crisis.

'In practice' it's up to 'the Government' to have the spine to face down the money grubbers. Sometimes it happens, often it doesn't - witness England's privatised water supplies/treatment scandal.

IT supply is just another venue for the same old story: greed vs. 'public service'.

Re: Used are far cheaper

Yeah, but they've been left out in the street instead of garaged, so who knows what state they'll be in.

Around these parts they'd be advertised AIWI - 'As Is, Where Is' - with the owner taking absolutely no liability or responsibility for their condition.

Obvious troll is obvious. Either that or someone is way down the denial rabbit hole. Change is a terrifying thing when your way of life is causing it.

In other news: agreed, current battery technology could certainly stand to change and improve.

Re: You expect it to "know" facts?

As my 'religious' choices (for, against, indifferent) are actual choices, not impositions of genetics, or cultural imperitives, I get to consider them every day, rather than assuming there is 'nothing to see here', on the basis that I have it all worked out and I know everything there is to know about that aspect of 'life'.

Arrogance and ignorance are powerful drivers of the problems we cause—ourselves, each other, and the planet—with or without any 'religious' components.

Re: "shorten PC replacement cycles"

Yep, it's the same old story as ever: " Please, please, please buy our shit. It's really shiny. [and then you can pay us muchly to maintain it, until we persuade you to buy our next load of shiny shit]

ad nauseum, ad infinitum ...

Re: I bet in spite of the usability angle, there is little to no fingerprint support

Seriously? Wow, I hope you make excellent use of those saved seconds.

Actually, it would be nice to have the option to simply incorporate biometric login, etc. It'll probably come in due course.

But it's absence as a serious reason for eschewing using Linux? Wow, but then it takes all sorts.

Re: Thunderbird is the replacement for Outlook Express

You may find the 'Cards' view of some help. Not sure if it's fully completed as planned yet:

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In this example we’ll show you the main Thunderbird window with “the Supernova look.” That’s when the Vertical layout is activated in Thunderbird 115, along with the new “Cards” view.

Card view (one of the cards is highlighted in red, see #11), is a multi-line, non-column alternative view of the message list. Currently there is a two line “card” for each message in the Message List Pane (our plan is to eventually expand this to 3 or 4 customizable lines). The first line has the sender’s display name and time, and the second line displays the subject.

---

IMAGE: https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2023/07/115-cards-window.png

Of course, shouldn't you/we all take that view, and carry it out—to care for others as a matter of principle? But that says nothing about the supposed, and real, predisposition of human beings to violence.

At a genetic level (and probably any level), to seek to categorise and define human beings according to some arbitrary threshold of 'predisposition' is both nonsensical and wicked.

Whether any of us are more, or less, likely to behave violently through genetic inheritance and/or environmental factors, we all have agency—are capable of choice, and awareness of the consequences of our actions. We are responsible beings (excepting those who are too ill/damaged to sensibly be regarded as being capable of taking responsibility).

Re: Repeat after me:

Isn't that the old mainframe model—everything else is just a dumb terminal. Everything old is new again.

I'm afraid I'm not qualified to answer your challenge though. My personal setup is accessible wherever, but I don't have an IP phone setup, and I don't support a workforce of tens, let alone hundreds.

Maybe others can supply an honest answer at an institutional level.

Re: The best

True, but only up to a point. In my, anecdotal, experience most people will quite happily sit down and get on with Mint/MX Linux/... as long as no one makes a big deal about 'CHANGE!!!'.

With a very little amount of initial handholding, and the odd bit of help and encouragement along the way, the people in my experience, with little to zero IT confidence, have all just got on with it, but this is all in private life.

Big institutions with their sub-cultures, paranoia, cynicism, and general disillusionment generally find 'CHANGE!!!' exactly that—something to be distrusted and avoided at all costs.

Re: Non-issue

Agreed, so long as you are doing a straight 'click through', say 'Yes' to everything install, but anyone unfamiliar with the concept and practicalities of partitioning is likely to lose heart at that point. Straightforward if you've done it before, or just know what you are doing, not so much fun otherwise.

Re: "have a go at importing .pub files"

.pub = tears of rage. Not only could nothing else open/edit the file, but neither could your earlier version/s, when the boss sent it through saying "Hey, I've just drawn this up, but I need you to add the current details—it's due out in an hour?" I'll tell you what I think of MSPub: FOAD already!

It wouldn't have been so bad if it wasn't for the fact that it was the goto DTP software for endless numbers of office drones, plus your grandparents.

Re: Teams/Outlook users driven over the Edge

Microsoft unashamedly states that Firefox is not a supported browser for Teams.

There's a workaround for that particular bit of nasty self-serving bullshit behaviour, but in general MS can FOAD for all the use they are in actually allowing people to do what they need/want with the kit they own—I think it's called 'general purpose computing'.

Re: Sigh.......

Isn't it a pity that some of us don't appreciate, or even understand, the concept of 'freedom', e.g. the freedom to/not to use Linux.

Re: Diversity of design

:-D Excellent, you make my point for me—Shuttleworth is free to use Linux, etc. to pursue his particular goals.

Re: zero cost

The point is that calling 'free' a 'market' is misleading, at best it's an edge case, and that's straining to force it into the 'market' category.

'Free' doesn't float on the stock market, doesn't incur tax, and has no meaningful legal obligations attached to it.

'Free' is massively important to the world as an antidote and counter-culture the 'the market'. 'Free software' is indeed a tiny aspect of 'free', for most people 'free' is what people do to look after each other - there is no profit motive, no need or expectation of a reciprocal benefit.

The fact that some agents do make money off the back of 'free' (Mozilla) doesn't mean that 'free' belongs, of itself, to 'the market. The two can, and do, co-exist, but they are not the same.

Re: Compensation?

Failing any realistic ability to prosecute responsible individuals, it would seem fair to assert 'collective responsibility' to all those 'responsible' executives above a certain grade and fine them (say up to 50% of their assets, or more) in proportion to their level of responsibility in the PO. They may have had nothing directly to do with the fsck-up and consequent persecution, but that is irrelevant in the context of 'institutional' culture and responsibility: you all benefit when things go well, so you should all bear the pain when the institution has behaved badly.

'Lloyds of London' used to operate on this principle: Lloyds 'names' benefited royally when their ships came in, and could literally lose everything, including the shirts off their backs, if the cargo was lost and they had to pay what was owing. That all stopped when the Govt. decided to take notice of the whining that ensued after some very shabby treatment of 'names' by scummy agents operating under Lloyds name back in the eighties (I think it was).

Whatever the rights and wrongs in that situation, there is something to be said for allowing people to actually personally take the hit when the organization that rewards them royally for warming a particular seat causes needless mayhem to other people's lives.

Re: Now you'll never have an excuse for missing that weekend work text or call

There's my work SIM and my personal SIM, and there's the 'OFF' switch.

Thankfully, there are some solutions that are genuinely simple.

Re: Four vacinations and I still caught Covid

COVID vaccines don't stop you catching COVID.

Flu vaccines don't stop you catching flu.

They both mitigate severity of symptoms, and to some extent reduce transmission, for the vast majority of people who receive the vaccine.

Re: Ah yes, the not-actually-AI hype train of nonsense chugs on.

Yeah, the bandwagon is both wide and long on this one—plenty of room for all the chancers, PR-droids, and money grubbers to climb onboard to boost their lies and honeytraps.

Like most (ahem) tools, generative 'AI' has it's uses, and within a limited envelope of 'usefulness' can be very useful indeed. Outside that envelope: utter unreliable drivel.

Of course, it'll take a while, and a few deaths and other tragedies, before we all settle down and let the tool have its sensible place.