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Comment Re:Rule of thumb (Score 1) 55

Europe has energy ratings very prominently displayed on white goods so I believe they are highly influential in purchase decisions. I think this smart shit is just an excuse for manufacturers to slap a 30-100% premium on a device for "smart" features which are neither convenient, nor labour saving, nor smart. And after 3 years the appliance is bitrotten or broken and prohibitively expensive to repair.

So as part of Europe's e-waste initiative they should really put rules in to stymie "smart" / "AI" products, by limiting what manufacturers can do with them and poisoning the pill by requiring the software on such devices be supported by the manufacturer for 15 years.

I have no idea what the US does about displaying energy consumption but I bet it is watered down bullshit like most of their regs. I should add that while I object to gratuitous and pointless "smart" features there are categories of appliance like robot vacuum cleaners where it has a purpose so a balance needs to be struck to curtail e-waste while allowing genuine advances in functionality.

Comment Re:No. Obviously. (Score 1) 91

It's about disassociating the cost of playing the game away from the financial transaction. They put all these virtual currency mechanics into the game so you're not thinking about how much it will cost all the time for the next dopamine hit. I'm sure they also make a tidy lump sum from profit & interest accrued from people who buy their Moon Rocks or whatever and then either lose interest in the game, die, or otherwise never spend them.

Comment Rule of thumb (Score 3, Interesting) 55

If a device purports to be "smart" or use "AI" then it's junk. Utter dogshit. And if a device requires a phone app, or account registration, or reliance on a cloud service when a simple remote or control panel would have sufficed then it's also junk. Utter dogshit. This is 100% true for any white goods and largely true for other appliances around the house.

Comment No. Obviously. (Score 2) 91

A better, more sane initiative would be to ban in-game currencies all together. i.e. if a game has a pay to play aspect then the game should require real money from the player's real jurisdiction to pay for it. Direct, immediate payment. No more Gold, or Doubloons, or Gems, or Smurf Berries, whatever the fuck disassociative bullshit a game wants people to spend in-game. No more boosters, or loot crates, or anything else either. You pay with money or you don't.

Comment Re:Good for farms (Score 1) 120

GPS involves receiving & synchronizing radio signals from 3 or more satellites to get a fix on the earth. Any scrambling mechanism would have to interfere with those frequencies and confuse devices getting a fix. That probably means scrambling has to be done either line of sight, or from Russia's own satellites in orbit, e.g. their GLONASS satellites although most of those cover Russia although the footprint might well cover chunks of Europe.

A lot of devices will also take a fix from GLONASS, or GPS, or Galileo or similar GNSS. It's also possible to supplement satellites with a terrestrial system, at least in urban centres which operates in a similar way and could be used as a contingency for solar activity, or active jamming. But nobody has bothered with that. There is also talk of a "quantum compass" which is a way of doing ultra accurate inertial dead reckoning using atomic interferometry but it's still experimental.

Comment Re:Point me to a better solution then... (Score 1) 152

Probably because these cloud services make it frictionless to get going. Personally I think companies developing proprietary software should be running a dedicated server that is running under their control. Doesn't mean the server has to be on site, it could be running on an EC2 or VM somewhere, but the people who set it up, administer it and backs it up are working for the company.

Comment Re:Point me to a better solution then... (Score 1) 152

GitLab is fine for commercial use IMO. We use it in our place and it suits our purpose, running on site rather than the cloud. Biggest issue with it is the free version is gimped in certain ways to encourage use of the professional version which costs $$$ to use. Also, GitLabs CICD pipeline files can quickly grow from manageable to incomprehensible.

Comment Re:Zero emissions? (Score 1) 137

Yes it is a blending. They call it a mix. Electricity is fungible and power grids will adjust the sources according to what the demand is and what the generation is. The overnight mix will largely depend on demand. If EVs are charging overnight and demand increases then it may well come from battery. That largely depends on generation and cost.

Comment Re:Windows 11 is a downgrade from 10 (Score 1) 164

It isn't change for change's sake. User interface design has moved from being a kitchen sink to a more cleaner, taskcentric model. That affects the look and feel of UIs, the terminology, the flow between screens, the widgets and placement of buttons and other things. On top of that desktops must now function over a wider variety of displays and input devices including tablets and touch screens and at various screen densities and resolutions. Then there is accessibility which also introduces new input devices, readers, and other requirements. And IMEs for non-Western languages. And also changes to fonts and other metrics. And the technical debt of two maintaining and gluing entirely disparate visual experiences together.

Microsoft has perfectly valid reasons for changing the UI over time, but Windows 11 is the first OS I think where the coverage results in a decent, cohesive UI. Like I said I still hate the start menu but the desktop and control panel experience doesn't feel cobbled together from bits and pieces as it does in 10.

Comment Re:Windows 11 is a downgrade from 10 (Score 1) 164

Win 11 has a dumbed down start menu but I think the experience overall is more coherent than in Windows 10 where it has a superficial modern feel but it's not hard to go into the control panel and be confronted with some dialog that hasn't changed much since Windows 2000. Windows 11 seems to have made a concerted effort to shed the old stuff although some may be lurking there to find.

As regards Linux, I don't think modern desktop dists are that far removed from the way Windows 11, OS X are going. If you look at GNOME then it's gone for a very minimalist, taskcentric desktop that keeps out of the way and avoids clutter. It could be regarded as a "toy" by people who like desktops festooned with icons but I consider it to be doing the right thing - staying out of the way. As for KDE, they basically just ape the Windows du jour and throw in the kitchen sink on top.

Comment Re:Windows 11 is a downgrade from 10 (Score 3, Interesting) 164

I can point to things that are a downgrade in 11 but mostly I think it is a more refined, more streamlined and more coherent Windows 10. But really it's like Windows 10.1 than a new justifiably distinct OS. The user interface for the operating system control panel, task bar looks more consistent rather than being a veneer of new user interface with Windows NT era property sheets a click away but other than that it's just a bag of smaller stuff.

The biggest downgrade IMO is the new start menu sucks balls. In Windows 10 I can pin something to the start menu and it stays put with a definite X & Y position and size (small / medium). In Windows 11 there is an index, not a position so stuff flows when you put new things in the menu. And that fucking recommendations panel cannot be hidden, only made smaller. I don't want recommendations, I want all the space for the stuff I've pinned. Since I have the "Pro" version of Windows 11 and I live in Europe I'm probably also not experiencing some bullshit that might afflict users in other regions on the "Home" version with regards to ads or whatever and I would not be surprised if that is why recommendations cannot be removed.

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