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Microsoft

Linus Torvalds Defends Windows' Blue Screen of Death (itsfoss.com) 63

Linus Torvalds recently defended Windows' infamous Blue Screen of Death during a video with Linus Sebastian of Linus Tech Tips, where the two built a PC together. It's FOSS reports: In that video, Sebastian discussed Torvalds' fondness for ECC (Error Correction Code). I am using their last name because Linus will be confused with Linus. This is where Torvalds says this: "I am convinced that all the jokes about how unstable Windows is and blue screening, I guess it's not a blue screen anymore, a big percentage of those were not actually software bugs. A big percentage of those are hardware being not reliable."

Torvalds further mentioned that gamers who overclock get extra unreliability. Essentially, Torvalds believes that having ECC on the machine makes them more reliable, makes you trust your machine. Without ECC, the memory will go bad, sooner or later. He thinks that more than software bugs, often it is hardware behind Microsoft's blue screen of death.
You can watch the video on YouTube (the BSOD comments occur at ~9:37).

Comment Re:Like His Fat Ass Can Fit In One (Score 1) 180

How bad can a party be when an Orange shitgibbon gets (re)elected as a result of party "missteps"?

Really shitty. I'm arrogant so I do want to point out the obvious: Trump won the primaries and became the candidate for the Republican team because the Republican party is shitty.

Both parties are really shitty.

Social Networks

'Rage Bait' Named Oxford Word of the Year 2025 (bbc.com) 41

Longtime Slashdot reader sinij shares a report from the BBC: Do you find yourself getting increasingly irate while scrolling through your social media feed? If so, you may be falling victim to rage bait, which Oxford University Press has named its word or phrase of the year. It is a term that describes manipulative tactics used to drive engagement online, with usage of it increasing threefold in the last 12 months, according to the dictionary publisher.

Rage bait beat two other shortlisted terms -- aura farming and biohack -- to win the title. The list of words is intended to reflect some of the moods and conversations that have shaped 2025.
"Fundamental problem with social media as a system is that it exploits people's emotional thinking," comments sinij. "Cute cat videos on one end and rage bait on another end of the same spectrum. I suspect future societies will be teaching disassociation techniques in junior school."

Comment Re:Like His Fat Ass Can Fit In One (Score 1) 180

That's an example of why they have really bad messaging, because they are more interested in politics than in science/reality. That leaves room for someone like Trump (the reality TV star) to do better messaging.

Biden/Harris were going around saying they wouldn't trust the vaccine. Governor Newsom was throwing large dinner parties after telling everyone to socially isolate. That's a strong indicator of people who don't care about science, and that's why they can't do better messaging than Trump.

Comment Re:Like His Fat Ass Can Fit In One (Score 1) 180

A clear example is the messaging on vaccines and masks. These aren't a matter of scientific debate: if everyone wears a mask and gets vaccinated, the pandemic will be slowed.

But, somehow it turned into "Biden is forcing us to do ..." whereas with a little better messaging, only crazy people would have minded. The problem wasn't the message, it was the way the message was delivered.
The Almighty Buck

Meta Confirms 'Shifting Some' Funding 'From Metaverse Toward AI Glasses' (uploadvr.com) 21

Meta has officially confirmed it is shifting investment away from the metaverse and VR toward AI-powered smart glasses, following a Bloomberg report of an up to 30% budget cut for Reality Labs. "Within our overall Reality Labs portfolio we are shifting some of our investment from Metaverse toward AI glasses and Wearables given the momentum there," a statement from Meta reads. "We aren't planning any broader changes than that." From the report: Following Bloomberg's report, other mainstream news outlets including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Business Insider have published their own reports corroborating the general claim, with slightly differing details...

Business Insider's report suggests that the cuts will primarily hit Horizon Worlds, and that employees are facing "uncertainty" about whether this will involve layoffs. One likely cut BI's report mentions is the funding for third-party studios to build Horizon Worlds content. The New York Times report, on the other hand, seems more definitive in stating that these cuts will come via layoffs.
The Reality Labs division "has racked up more than $70 billion in losses since 2021," notes Fortune in their reporting, "burning through cash on blocky virtual environments, glitchy avatars, expensive headsets, and a user base of approximately 38 people as of 2022."

Comment Re:AI (Score 0) 64

When you get your accounting from "IIRC" you end up somehow, miraculously, being stupider than that stupidity box people stare at.

(The US Government's entire budget across all IT and AI research for 2025 was $11B)

Considering your username I'd have expected better, except that this is slashdot so expectations are pegged pretty low.

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