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Comment Sorry, we don't support your OS yet (Score 1) 189

1. Make it easier to make new apps. Visual Basic for AI.

How might that work? Every approach I've seen has a drawback:
- Write the app using "web app technologies"? You end up shipping with each application a redundant copy of most of Chrome. Your users can't afford that kind of storage bloat in this SSD shortage.
- Use native code that calls the facilities of the operating system that the hobbyist developer uses daily? "Sorry, my app doesn't support your OS yet."
- Use native code at all? "Sorry, my code signing certificate ran out; I recommend building from source code. Here's how:" followed by a script that downloads and installs 20 GB of build-time dependencies.

2. Stop using browsers. For every thing you normally do with a browser, make an app for it.

And end up with a lot fewer people installing your app because of SmartScreen Application Reputation (on Windows), Gatekeeper (on macOS), App Review (on iOS and Android), and other deliberate friction that operating system publishers have ostensibly put in the way of wide distribution of malware that can read and exfiltrate every document in your user profile/home directory. A domain name, an entry-level VPS, and a TLS certificate to operate a web application are a lot more affordable than the code signing certificates to sign ports of a native application to all major platforms.

And again, the SSD shortage. Web applications keep working even if evicted from disk cache for capacity reasons.

3. Open source versions of every service people depend on big companies for.

Years ago, I thought of three application categories that won't get Free replacements any time soon: video games, players for rented movies and TV shows, and individual income tax return preparation software.

4. "Local Internet". Your town, city, state, etc, all have people running the FOSS services. It's not run by big corps, but volunteers and municipalities.

I live in a US House district that FiftyPlusOne has marked as a "safe" seat for the incumbent member of the low-government-services party. How would I go about convincing the public that a municipal bulletin board system is anything other than a waste of tax money?

5. "FOSS Devices". Apple and Google still control all our devices, what apps we can install. They will stop the plan, to control us and the internet. So we need to control our devices. A truly open, unrestricted OS for mobiles.

Under current law, mobile carriers have power to exclude those devices from their networks.

Comment Re:Microwave beam is not a "heat ray" (Score 1) 144

Someone has already pointed this out, but it bears repeating. For that to actually be true, they would need to cost more from the budget than they add to it through both direct taxation, and the tax revenue generated through the effects of their labor and other economic activity on the GDP. Virtually all studies show that they're actually a net benefit there.

Perhaps for the LEGAL migrants...but not for the ILLEGAL migrants...they are a burden on the US taxpayer.....they're usually paid under the table, off the books and are the ones clogging up our ERs and classrooms.

Comment Re:U missed the HUGE one (Score 2) 189

Ellison's Paramount Skydance Warner Bros Discovery - and movies/TV can be very subtle in pushing a narrative or shaping public opinion.

As opposed to all the subtle (and lately not so subtle) narratives the current folks have been pushing for years now?

Comment Censorship-resistant, perhaps (Score 1) 189

But with a sufficient number of fiber-seeking backhoes* censorship will always be possible.

*"fiber-seeking backhoes" being a stand-in for whatever disrupts the physical layer of the network stack. Substitute radio jammers, power disruptions, etc. as appropriate for your target's network.

Comment 2 statements are identical, says establishment (Score 1) 1

"What do the most authoritative and widely accepted sources currently support?" rather than "What conclusion emerges if we examine the full body of available evidence - including controversial, obscure, or dissenting sources - and weigh each on its merits?" [emphasis added]"

"On its merits" is defined by the establishment as "in agreement with established information/consensus" therefore the two statements are functionally identical, if you are the establishment.

If you are an AI trained to reflect the establishment point of view, your AI will, in all of its AI-sincerity, give you an answer that "emerges after it examines the full body of available evidence -including controversial, obscure, or dissenting sources - and weighs each on its merits" which will be substantially the same result as if it "examined only what the authoritative and widely accepted sources currently support."

Comment What is "the internet" (Score 2) 189

The technical person would say it's a collection of protocols and the hardware and software that implement them. The information that happens to be hosted there, other than of course the information necessary to keep the internet functioning (routing tables, DNS records, etc.), is not "the internet."

There is no need for the internet as defined above to die, unless something better has displaced it and almost nobody is using it anymore (BITNET anyone?).

Comment Re:Does anyone like touch screens on a notebook? (Score 1) 72

Does anyone actually have a use case for a touch screen, that can't be better served with a device that prevents it?

Yes, but not for you and me. Graphics designers have been using stylus-displays for years and years, because it's great to draw on the thing you are making instead of drawing on a different surface like a Wacom.

But I'm like you, I don't have a use case for a touchscreen and if you touch my notebook screen I'll be angry because I prefer it without fingerprints, thanks. So my first question is: Do they offer this thing with OLED but without touch? I guess not. Pity.

Comment reason to buy (Score 1) 174

I've been slowly moving towards my dream setup: Solar panels, battery, EV car, island mode capability. This is one thing that'd be a factor in my buying decision. Using your car as a battery or secondary battery is a big plus, and if they built the necessary equipment to run independent of the power grid, it'd come in a neat package.

While power failures are rare where I live, I expect them to become more common with the move to renewable energies. I support that, but it's more fragile than constantly running power stations. So being able to run your home at least for a few hours on your own energy is something that I consider a good idea.

Comment Re:oh dear... (Score 1) 29

You missed the point.

A friend of mine made a tea-timer app for the iPhone. Where you enter what tea you are making and it sets the correct number of minutes. Today, people would ask ChatGPT before they go on the App Store to search for something like that. That's the point. Not what YOU would do, but what the general public does. And for Jane Doe, ChatGPT has replaced a lot of these specialty apps.

Comment Re:oh dear... (Score 1) 29

Skills are great until they aren't. The problem is exactly what you say: You can literally create a skill by telling the LLM to create a skill. Which is... why the f do I need to make a skill if the AI already knows how to do it?

Properly created skills, that include reference material, specific instructions, and expert knowledge the LLM doesn't have or that's buried somewhere under 10 layers of reddit posts is genuinely useful. But most skills aren't. I'm constantly underwhelmed by hyped-up skills that, when I look at them, turn out to be bland, basic instructions.

Comment Re:So what you are saying is ... (Score 1) 152

Ignore network traffic until security self-defenses are in place.

Yeah, you can have a buffer overflow anytime, and they can be bad, but the situation explicitly pointed out an "invaders not recognized as evil before armed guards are posted" situation.

If this had been a bad buffer overflow that occurred AFTER the defenses were in place, maybe it would've resulted in a compromise, or maybe the defenses would've rendered it ineffective.

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