I can safely say that, being a massive gamer, having used Linux (and frequented Slashdot) for probably 30-35 years, having spent half that time with a primary Linux desktop/laptop, having ported some games to the GP2X (a Korean, handheld Linux-based console), being a Steam Deck owner and developer, and recently having purchased a Framework laptop to use as my primary desktop including a LOT of gaming (having seen the work that Valve's done to make Proton work)...

I've never heard of a single one of those companies.

As I had to announce in a cybersecurity training session to all staff at my employer's recently:

Security. Convenience. Cost. Pick any two.

Honestly, there's a reason that almost every practical security measure is actually an inconvenience of some kind. For example, 2FA.

It's an increasing trend that people "just don't care" about data security.

Whether that's simple things like copyright, or things like GDPR, or things like trusting third parties on the other side of the world that knowingly misuse data while operating in foreign legal jurisdictions.

It's a laziness, not a protest from them. They just don't care about people's data because they've grown up in a world where nobody seems to care about their data.

You see it in new-hires all the time. Just copy-pasting shite out of Google or ChatGPT and not understanding that they can't just slap that out there for any conceivable purpose they might want to. Or just uploading data to unauthorised services because it's convenient, no matter how many times they've been told not to. Or digging into data they have theoretical access to even though they shouldn't be doing so for the thing they're doing (creating all kinds of HR and data-usage nightmares).

It's a "slop" of human creation.

Gosh, do you mean that THIS generation of AI can also only regurgitate its training database according to a statistical fit, and not infer any new about the data whatsoever?

The oldest problem in AI? That people literally try to pretend is solved by calling one part of the training "inference" now? Even though it doesn't infer a damn thing that's not in the data?

Gosh. Who'd've thunk?

I am struggling to envisage how this would ever work reliably.

The only protocol that the device speak is GCode, and that's so low-level it means you could rejig the same final print in a million different ways without compromise. I'm not sure how you'd ever detect that reliably.

If it's on the software then... wow... all someone has to do is keep an old "STL to GCode" slicer around that defeats that too.

This is one of those things that sounds great as a political soundbite but it's not even on the scale of "we'll just automatically detect all indecent images everywhere on the Internet in real-time with good false-positive rates"... it's orders of magnitude past that. It's completely unworkable. What mechanism are they intending to use to do this at all? An AI model running on every printer trying to guess from the overall shape of an object? That would just be endless fun with building building innocent looking models that "break down" into the necessary parts, and tons of "I can't print that" (and returned devices) when you just go to print a hook because it looks a bit like a trigger component, etc.

You might be able to blacklist a few chosen well-known, STLs but then people would just rejig them slightly.

If you want to legislate, you have to have an INKLING of an idea of how this would actually work.

And then you have to remember... 3D printers basically started as a self-built hobbyist thing. The components and software to drive them are easily recreated. They're just plotters with a moving Z-plane and hot plastic instead of a pen. 3D cutters (laser, CNC, etc.) are similar and in some cases even easier.

However "admirable" the intentions, this is akin to a screwdriver with a camera that detects if you're screwing into something that looks like a nuclear bomb and refuses to turn if it thinks so. It's ridiculous and unworkable.

The closest thing we have to this is the "can't photocopy money" markers, but they are clearly defined, a very fixed image, clear markers, very limited purposes when you would ever need to genuinely do that, very low false-positives, etc. This is orders of magnitude more ridiculous.

I think what we need is (a conceptual model of) two modes of personal knowledge.

One mode is your personal area of expertise. You could be a web app programmer, or biomedical researcher, or welder, or plumber, or whatever. You have all the knowledge you need to participate in your field without help.

The other side is "everything else". You use AI to get you by the tasks you need to accomplish, because it's too difficult or onerous to go and read the documentation for everything.

For example, just yesterday I wanted to convert an existing laptop windows partition into a VM to run on my office computer under VirtualBox. It took 12 hours of back-and-forth with ChatGPT, and I understood most of the actions at every step, but I could not have recited the steps needed. It's all sdisk and VboxManage and ntfsclone commands that I didn't know existed, but that made sense in context. I didn't know how to do it, but I knew how to describe what needed to be done, and I knew how to sanity check the steps.

For the two modes, perhaps we need an oral exam for each student to verify that they actually know their area of expertise. Or something similar: a proctored exam in a secure location, for example.

If the student shows competence in their area of expertise, then the education system can simply ignore everything else and let the student use AI as much as they want.

Just a thought. File under "changes in culture brought about by AI".

According to the developer, WMI is required for their licensing system.

It sucks, really. Before I bought hardware I surveyed the available software packages, LightBurn was best in class and they supported linux.

About a year later, they dropped linux support.

Does it handle Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI)?

Anyone know?

(I use LightBurn for some laser cutters. It only runs on Windows and there's no viable substitute. Wine fails because it didn't handle WMI)

I have a new Framework laptop running Linux.

Unfortunately, there seems to be no way to trigger the Steam hardware survey on Linux.

So actually those numbers might actually be lower.

I also have to say:

- Never install the snap version of Steam (or any other app that you actually want to run the latest version of, it seems).
- My games "just work". 1700 games and I just double-click and, for the vast, vast, vast majority, they just work. I've actually got games that work first time on Linux but no longer work on Windows at all.

I don't care about "year of the desktop" nonsense. But I am entirely Linux at home now (again) and to be honest... it's boring. Things just work.

Valve needs to be given an industry award for Proton. It's honestly the best piece of technology I've seen in decades. Fuck AI, Proton needs to be recognised as a technological advancement of much importance.

They never cared when Windows / Office were basically the vast bulk of their product offerings and income.

It's a method of control that they want, and Windows is a good method of control. They can use anti-monopolistic practices to force you into their ecosystem, even decades after having been convicted of just that. There are Windows Server functions and even 365 admin functions that literally only work in Edge. They have shoved Edge and Copilot into everything because they want your data - browsing and now all your data. They integrate OneDrive into explorer because they want your data.

They don't care about users, even enterprise users, removing that control. They sometimes make it *technically* possible, presumably to avoid another unfair competition lawsuit, but they have no real interest in it whatsoever. Why support PXE booting if you can get an InTune licence out of people? Why support local admins if you can force them to pay for another Microsoft account?

And the thing is: People still fall for it. People still think you "must have" Windows, and a Microsoft account, and Office, to use a computer. Even people on iPad are buying Office. Not because they use even 1% of 1% of the features, but because they have been told its necessary or "easier" (often by people in the industry).

Nothing's changed in terms of tactics since the days when Windows was the monopolistic product that they use to force people in using IE instead of Netscape, etc.

Personally, I now need to be paid to work with Windows, or Office. At home, I'm now entirely Linux again (I previously ran Slackware as a primary desktop for 10 years, ironically while managing Windows networks). In Windows 7 / 8 / 8.1 you had a decent OS and you could coax it to do what you want.

With Windows 11, I have basically warned my employers over the years that... I'm not in control of it any more. If your data ends up in Copilot? Nothing I can do about that. If your browser gets forced back to Edge? Nothing I can do about that. If your system decides to apply Windows Updates at an awkward time? Nothing I can do about that. I used to have controls. They used to work pretty well. But... no longer. No matter what I do this month, next month another update, hidden option or whatever will appear and I have no way to guarantee what that will do and, yes, quite often it'll undo or introduce "new controls" for the above.

You want to use MS, and Windows, and Office, and Teams, and Outlook, and all the other pieces? Then you just have to accept what they give you and deal with the consequences. They are kind of on a mission to remove people like me. They just want everything in the cloud and then they can manage your PCs for you. That's clearly the end-goal here. As such... I have to warn my users and employers that... this option... I can't guarantee it will stay off.

At home, I'm entirely Linux for a reason. It does what I say. There are bits that I still hate about modern Linux (systemd, etc.) but, it does what I say. It doesn't suddenly run off and index the entire network for no reason. It doesn't constantly question my choice of browser. It doesn't try and install a bunch of secret apps behind my back that I can't remove. It couldn't care less what I decide to use to open .docx files. And it doesn't have dumb ideas like wanting to screenshot my PC every few minutes and then run the screenshots through online AI.

I've got RPi's. I've got a Steam Deck. And since Christmas I have a Framework laptop. They all just do what I say. And, do you know... computing is boring again. Things just do what I tell them, and then stay fixed. And the OS is how I like it. I double-click an application and the OS gets the hell out of my way. That's it.

Honestly, I'm done with Windows unless you're compensating me for the sheer hassle of having to deal with it, and then I'll just tell you that there are things I cannot do or can no longer guarantee.

(Typed on a Samsung phone using DeX because again - that's an OS that just gets out of my way).

One of my favorite lines of all time comes from that movie:

"Sometimes, you just can't get rid of a bomb!"

Here's a video of China's greening efforts.

If China keeps on the way it's been going, eventually the whole country will be green!

Sigh.

I'm going to have to do it, aren't I?

I'm going to have to change all my forwarded domains to my own mailserver for webmail just so that I don't have shite like this running around in my email.

I have everything switched off, but there isn't going to be an option at some point.

I cannot express this enough: I do not want AI.

"Someone sold me something that wasn't Sandisk, so I decided to arbitrarily punish SanDisk for their popularity."

A simpler explanation would be that he's not a fascist.

CPB might have been useful 50 years ago, but with today's technology and access you can find all sorts of really good educational videos online.

And with the online stuff you can choose to avoid the ones that are politically biased.

Or seek them out. Both kinds are available in the new media.