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Comment Re: This is a parody, right? (Score 2) 239

Uh no, that is not remotely what I said. I said that it's not weird for people to not have knowledge of things for which they have no use. Times change, being able to read an analogue clock used to be an essential life skill, now it is not. Of course it is natural, not weird, that more and more people never learn (or forget) how to do it. How you could possibly construe that in the way you did I have no idea. By all means fill your head with whatever knowledge you like. Learn to tell the time by the sun and stars, if you like. There are loads of forgotten skills that almost everybody used to know and now almost nobody does. It's not a bad thing, it's just a change.

Comment Re: This is a parody, right? (Score 1, Troll) 239

I don't think it's weird - just times are changing as they always do. Digital clocks are everywhere and analogue clocks are rare nowadays. There's no more reason to learn how to read an analogue clock than there is to learn to how to use an old rotary telephone. Of course if you take away all the digital clocks and put kids into an environment where there is only analogue clocks they will struggle, it will generate a lot of click-baity headlines with outraged older people but I'm sure the kids will pick it up very quickly - or, of course, the schools can just update their clocks - as they are doing here, much to the dismay of the Daily Mail set.

Comment Re:Bring back the Mini! (Score 1) 48

Hmm. I went from 6 to 11 to 15 and probably the next one will be the 19 or 20. Just because they release a new product every year doesn't mean you have to buy it and I think very, very few people actually do. On the other hand if they only released one every 4 years you could be buying 3 year old tech when you need a new phone instead of something that is current. So personally prefer they stick to the current release cycle. I don't really see why people get upset about it tbh there's no downside to the consumer.

Comment What do the product teams think? (Score 1) 271

I don't think I'd be too happy if two guys came in and rewrote the whole code base in a different language using AI and then said "here you go, you get to maintain this now". That AI slop code base would be consigned to its own branch never to be touched again. This story can't be true - not just for technical reasons, which are legion, but product team buy in definitely won't be there. More likely IMO they are using the C++ to Rust port scenario as a method to develop refactoring tools not to actually produce production code - that could have interesting output.

Comment Re:Was there a shortage? (Score 1) 83

That doesn't work as there are well established rules of origin. The sales growth here would've happened regardless of Trump's policy. It will stop soon anyway as our government (UK) has announced they will also abolish the de minimis exception and I believe the EU are doing the same. It's throwing the baby out with the bath water IMO as there are good reasons for the exception, I don't know why they can't devise a more targeted solution.

Comment Re: Feels kind of 50/50 to me? (Score 2) 37

When I upgraded my iPhone 11 to my current iPhone 15 it was an absolute doddle. Everything was transferred over automatically. All apps, data, all system settings, Apple Pay, eSIM, the lot. It was just there and ready for me to use straightaway. It was a surprise to me as the upgrade from my iPhone 6 to the 11 was not like that at all.

Comment Re:Okay. (Score 1) 19

True but there will also be a lot of more advanced users guiding the AI to better answers over multiple interactions. Ingesting these will help imrpove the quality of the initial response to a 'typical dumb question'. That said, I will not be consenting to carte blanche data retention, I would recommend people keep it disabled and use the feedback buttons for individual chats if they want to help improve future versions of the model.

Comment Re:Microsoft vs. Customers (Score 1) 276

There's a bit of goal post moving here. I use Arch myself but the fundamental thing about Arch is that you either have the latest versions of everything or you stop updating altogether (or you build your own software, I suppose). If Windows worked like that there would be many tears. Distributions like Ubuntu are comparable to Windows where they release an edition, with a stable feature set and look and feel, and then maintain it for a number of years before dropping support. You then have to upgrade to the latest version which may bring significant changes some of which you may not like. Having to upgrade from 20.04, which has just been dropped from free support, to 22.04 or 24.04 is no different to having to upgrade from Windows 10 to Windows 11. To my knowledge there is no Linux distribution that offers free support for a particular edition longer than 5 years. I could be wrong but I do believe Windows' 10 year free support is unmatched.

Comment Re:Microsoft vs. Customers (Score 2, Informative) 276

Linux doesn't really solve the problem of wanting to use a 10 year old version of software AND have it supported. Long Term Support in the Linux world usually means 5 years tops then you either pay money or upgrade. You could make an argument about the TPM requirement but you have to go back nearly 8 years to find a CPU that doesn't have one built-in. The vast majority of people running Windows 10 today could upgrade to Windows 11 for free.

Comment It's a good start (Score 2) 80

But the law is very limited. You have to be certified by two doctors as only having 6 months left to live. You then have to start to start a bureaucratic battle with the government to get their permission and that of a 'panel of experts' which knowing our government will takes months. You have then have to wait another month to make sure you don't change your mind. And then and only then will you be prescribed the medication which you have to be physcially capable of administering yourself. There will be many many cases of people wanting this who will not be able to get it, e.g. MND, or too weak to fight the system to obtain it. I see this as a start but access will need to broaden.

Comment Re:Why? (Score 1) 86

Indeed, when I first took out YouTube Premium I cancelled Spotify at the same time, because obviously I no longer needed it, so in my mind I was really just paying £3 a month for no ads which IMO is great value. Nowadays the price difference between Spotify and YouTube is only £1 a month. If you don't want a music service the value proposition would be different. I do wish they would unbundle the music service form the ad-free service. If they sold ad-free for like £3 a month I'm sure they would attract many more subscribers and become less dependent on ad money which would be good for everybody.

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