I've had Ubuntu updates brick VMs before.

The discussion on Ars is terrible. Slashdot's genius is the way moderation works. It's far from perfect, but a million times better than the Ars up/down voting system.

Microsoft can do a lean, efficient OS when they want to. Windows 7, for example.

They seem to be getting over AI now it has become clear that AI is going to stop people buying new computers and it will be mostly a cloud service. Hopefully with the threat from Linux they will get back on track.

They have, that's why Microsoft has been releasing so many patches lately.

Remember all the comments about how incompetent Microsoft developers are, and how Linux is so much better? Turns out nobody is safe from AI bug hunters.

For me it's more of a pain with Linux because now I have to support a whole Linux SBOM.

I meant Pi Pico, not Zero.

What was the thinking behind having both types of core?

Espressif have used at least three different CPU cores, including ARM and RISC V, in their microcontrollers. I think for the more integrated system on chip style MCUs it doesn't really matter which they have now. As long as GCC supports it, it's largely invisible to the user.

I haven't tried the Pi Zero but with Espressif they only support libraries for all peripherals, and with the WiFi it's a certification issue. Their build system is crap too.

The quality of the software is probably above average for Linux distros, but the documentation isn't great.

I think the thing is it doesn't really improve the software all that much. It's literally bugs that are there because nobody has bothered looking for them.

So it's basically generating a shitload of work fixing and testing bugs that probably weren't worth fixing. You're seeing the same thing in mathematics where AI will solve some 300-year-old math problem you get a bunch of headlines and then you read and find out the reason it's been unsolved for 300 years is because nobody bothered and it wasn't all that hard to solve...

AI can replace some customer service employees and it has uses in math and science when carefully directed but the commercial llms aren't terribly useful

Hilariously Microsoft is trying. I'm slightly interested to see if anything comes out of it but I'm not expecting much.

The real problem with Windows 11 is every single division in Microsoft is required to be profitable because of course they are so you're fucking weather app uses 3 GB of RAM so it can serve up a limitless supply of advertisements in an effort to make money off a freaking weather app...

All those divisions aren't going to give up their RAM and resources without a fight. So I don't see how Windows 11 can be paired back into something usable on 16 GB of RAM let alone the 8 gigabytes they're trying to Target to compete with Apple.

Android has two toggles for sideloading. The first is the global toggle which enables or disables it for all apps, and then beyond that each individual app that wants to launch an install has to get the permission to do so. But they only have to get it once, and then they can install as many apps as many times as they like.

So for example, once sideloading is enabled globally I needed to also enable it for F-Droid. But only once, then F-Droid could install apps and updates with only a "are you sure you want this app?" prompt. And from the sounds of it, that prompt is doing away so that other app stores can have the same experience as the Play Store.

They hacked right through my ROT 26 encryption!

Yes, look at how they are pushing age verification. It's actually a decent implementation, if you accept the basic premise that there is a reasonable interest in protecting children from adult services and material.

In fact it might be an improvement over what we have now, where people have to show ID to enter certain venues or buy certain products. The checkout is anonymous, unless you have to show the clerk your ID to prove you are old enough to buy alcohol.

They way they have implemented it, you verify once, ideally with the government who already knows who you are anyway, and then your device can validate your age on demand. There is no way to tie the validation to an identity, and no two validations are relatable so it can't be used for tracking.

If they don't fuck up the crypto it will be an improvement over what we have now. It's actually shitty that the UK is no longer in the EU and won't benefit from it.

I'm not saying that as an insult that's just a literal fact.

It is extraordinarily expensive to train a police officer. Much of this expense is because of corruption. Most of the training that we give them these days is pseudo-military training that looks cool to idiots. Think gravy seals. But we still have to pay for it all and the city has to pay for it.

The upshot to that is doing the actual job is incredibly boring. It's mostly pulling people over and giving them tickets. Something like 70% of police officers will never even draw their sidearm.

However the job pays reasonably well given how bad the economy is and has a clear career path to retirement. Along with a lot of opportunities to make extra money on the side.

So the problem cities had was people would go through all the training get bored out of their mind at the job and quit and go do something else. So they started to do testing to detect people or too smart. People who would get bored.

I haven't done it myself but I have friends that have applied to be a police officer and been turned down and when they looked into it it literally came down to they were too smart and the algorithm said they would quit the job after 6 months to a year haven't gotten all that expensive training...

As a result we intentionally select dumb people to be police. As an added bonus if you need them to bust heads at a union meeting they're all on board...

Dumb people tend to be violent because when you're not all that bright you quickly run out of options. Like the old saying goes, War is the continuation of political policy by other means...

So you get a lot of police officers beating their wives. You get a lot of cops shooting people they shouldn't be shooting. That sort of thing.

And you get a lot of cops spying on their exes.

They're a well known and well understood solutions to this problem. Other countries have done them. But America generally isn't up for that

I think the EU would care, especially since Android is currently open and Google is taking something away. Apple gets away with it because they have been like that from day one.

Ah, yes. Well, we will have to wait and see I suppose. I would be surprised if they ended up killing F-Droid though, I really can't see the EU being happy about that.