Microsoft has control over distribution of the copyrighted Windows operating system. It has used this control to dictate whether or not makers of devices that include Windows are allowed to let users load their own custom keys. For example, Microsoft required makers of devices that come with Windows RT (the port of Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 to ARM architecture) to block end users from turning off Secure Boot and block end users from loading their own custom keys, as conditions for a license under copyright to distribute Windows RT on those devices.

I think it was brought up because a youtuber brought it up recently in one of their videos and it probably went viral.

He mentioned how it was billed as supposedly a relaxing spa type retreat that wasn't, and what was a disaster for some, others found fun and team building.

It wasn't captured as anything other than "CEO misreads room for team building event". All I know is such activities aren't for me so I don't know if those who weren't equipped to do that sort of thing had an alternative thing or they were forced to participate.

Which it was.

Microsoft issues the secure boot keys that are used by all Linux distributions.

If they can just arbitrarily yank someone's keys like this, apparently without explanation or appeal, then what does that mean for those Linux keys? Are they subject to withdrawal for no reason as well?

Incorrect. Microsoft signs the boot shim. This lets you use Secure Boot with the default Microsoft keys you use to boot Windows. So any PC, with Secure Boot enabled, can boot Linux. The keys built into every PC are Microsoft's, and even if you hard reset the machine, they will revert to those Microsoft keys.

You are encouraged though if you run Linux, to create your own keys, and install them on your PC. Doing so would require you to re-sign the Microsoft bootloader but you are free to use your own keys. The only reason Microsoft signed the shim is because some OEMs do not make it easy to install a third-party key to secure-boot a non-Windows OS. So the Microsoft signed shim means if it can boot Windows, it can boot Linux.

And I say shim because that's the actual component signed - major Linux distributions re-distributed the signed binary. But it's bootloader independent - you can use the signed shim to boot your own version of GRUB or other bootloader and continue the secure boot chain if desired. (If you use something like Ubuntu, you're likely to encounter this if you try to compile your own kernel or module where you then h ave to add a key to the shim so the kernel can run your new module.

Microsoft can stop signing new shims, but that has nothing to do with Secure Boot. It's just a way so everything that can boot Windows can boot other OSes even if the OEMs lock down the computer.

Big companies often use their own keys for secure boot.

Then again, Apple's treatment of the Vision Pro perplexes me, so who knows what Apple is doing there...

I think Apple is trying to figure it out too, so they're just letting it be a developer's playground as in "Here's some cool hardware, now do something with it".

It's a device looking for a purpose, and Apple is just trying to see where that goes. I'm sure most of what we do with smartphones today wasn't what Jobs envisioned back for the original iPhone, so the Vision Pro is similar. Maybe hoping to see if an interesting use case pops out.

The pilots carry a transponder. If you make it down to the ground alive, you hide, turn on the transponder and wait for a rescue.

There was an article about the Boeing device that is just this.

It uses spread-spectrum wideband technology in fast burst mode so you can communicate. It's encrypted, digital and the fast burst means every transmission lasts well under 1ms which means by the time you detect it, it's too late to triangulate the position. (Think of the annoying beeping prank toys you can get)

Wideband technology means even if you pick something up, the location is spread out, and is a much weaker signal as it barely disturbs the noise floor.

It's also a 2 way communicator so you can send messages to it and they can reply back, and basically handheld. You strap it on, turn it on and it transmits your position in those bursts.

Of course, the biggest farce is about the second pilot being reported in the news. Which is a farce because if you know anything about the F-15E, you know it's a 2 man aircraft. So you know if you shot one down, there are two people you have to account for. It's not just public information, it's basically well known information. The fact that one was rescued means obviously there's one more to look for.

To put it in perspective, by then you could get IBM PC clones for under $1,000.

Not in 1984. Clones were cheaper, but the $1000 PC era didn't arrive until the 90s. The cheapest IBM PC was around $2000, but you were looking at like 128K of RAM and NO floppy drive. (The original IBM PC had a tape interface so you could use ... audio cassettes. While not unusual since every other computer had tape interfaces, basically nothing used it other than CBASIC - cassette BASIC which was a ROM BIOS option). That configuration was rapidly dropped and prices rose because you really needed 256K of RAM and 2 floppy drives.

Though one loading MS-DOS from cassette tape might have been an interesting alt-universe thing.

Among the 8-bits, the Commodore 64 was probably the cheapest around $500-600 (and another $400 for the disk drive, or $200 for the tape drive, I think).

Computers weren't something in many homes in 1984 - if you had one, it was likely an 8-bit one. PCs didn't really land in the home until later on when clones started coming down at half the price of IBM, But that was still several thousand dollars. An IBM with hard drive, single floppy and 640K was north of $5000, so a clone would likely be between $3000+ for a similar configuration.

The thing is, the MacBook Neo was done so Apple could experiment - to comply with upcoming EU laws, use up some chips they had sitting around and other things. They didn't expect the sales they got because honestly, if you survey the sub-$600 laptop market on PCs, it's rather dismal. Apple somehow packaged together something with a stunning screen, metal case and decent battery life. The CPU and RAM were middling, but for light tasks decent enough. But the display is bright and vibrant and outclasses anything you can find, the case is sold and not creaky plastic, and the battery life isn't abhorrent. It's also not a thick beast and retains the Apple aesthetic. And no stickers.

Honestly, it's something of a competitor to the iPad itself. Apple sticking a touchscreen on it and you pretty much can't justify an iPad anymore.

Since pertinent information was withheld (that it didn't know), then by your own post you acknowledge it was a lie of omission.

The stupidity of people these days is truly beyond belief. And, yes, get the f off my lawn.

We learned back in the 80s that trying to get a neural net to emphasise what you want is actually very difficult. What it will tend to emphasise are the assumptions that underly the test data, and that's usually a completely different sort of fiction.

But was that figure provided by AI?

Even if not, we all know that 793% of all statistics are invented.

If something is inaccurately presented as being the truth, then it is a lie of omission because it is dishonest about the fact that the information isn't actually known.

Gemini is exceptionally bad, as LLMs go. I really have no idea why it is so dreadful, even compared to other LLMs. It isn't context window. and it doesn't seem to be training material either.

Cyber Implications have been noted. Mondas security is to be Cyber Vibed until we have Cyber Security capable of defeating The Doctor.

And the really annoying thing about this is that when the AI bubble inevitably crashes, it's going to be difficult to repurpose all of these specialized AI processors into something useful..

No, it's basically impossible. AI doesn't need high precision math - 16-bit floating point, 8 bit floating point, even 4 bit floating point is all that's required.

There aren't many uses for such low precision ALUs and such other than AI.

When I test the different AI systems, Google's AI system loses track of complex problems incredibly quickly. It's great on simple stuff, but for complex stuff, it's useless.

Unfortunately.... advice, overviews, etc, are very very complex problems indeed, which means that you're hitting the weakspot of their system.