I suspect the thoroughness of the vetting is inversely proportional to the size of the kickback to Microsoft.

Indeed. I use Linux most of the time, and MacOS a bit of the time, but the old Windows desktop is still there for the infrequent times when I need it to work on old music projects. I have it too dual-booting into Linux, so even it spends most of its time in a more sane OS.

I’ve used an LG monitor for about 5 years, and never install the manufacturer’s software unless it looks genuinely useful. When I saw the Gamers Nexus video I went to check my installed apps, and sure enough there was LG’s monitor app, installed silently without my knowledge. I used Bulk Crap Uninstaller to get rid of it.

To prevent this kind of thing in future, run gpedit.msc and enable “Prevent automatic download of applications associated with device metadata” under Computer Configuration → Administrative Templates → System → Device Installation.

If they came out and honestly said “we will focus our antiterrorism efforts on suppressing workers’ attempts to organize” their cult rubes might smell something fishy (but probably wouldn’t).

As a programmer I’ve been doing this, but only because a friend lent me a very powerful computer that I could never afford myself. That’s the problem right now: local LLM use requires a huge upfront investment in equipment that most workers can’t afford. But it does feel a lot better (and cheaper, once you have the equipment) to run the LLM on a server at home than on a server owned by some nasty tech company. If everyone could run open models locally some of the main objections would fall away.

So I disagree with the poster who said anything you can run at home isn’t worth it, but the catch is you need an absurdly expensive computer. The one I’m using would cost about 6 times what I used to pay for a powerful development PC. The model and agent I’m using can do some complex things and get decent results. But right now no affordable computer can run them. On regular affordable computers the models you can run are indeed limited.

Yes, he is a bullshitter. I think that distinction comes from Harry Frankfurt:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Bullshit

Trump has said, without citing evidence, that vandals made a “350-foot gash” in the liner and caused other problems. No large slash marks were immediately visible Wednesday from the Washington Monument view. It was not possible to do a more up-close inspection of the entire pool due to a dark fence surrounding the perimeter.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, whose agency oversees the National Park Service, said that after the water is drained and debris is cleaned from Independence Day fireworks, the plan for the pool is straightforward: “Repair the vandalism that was done. Fill it back up again.” He was speaking with conservative podcaster Katie Miller.

They believe their own lies, don’t they? It would be easier if it were just straightforward dishonesty, but it has turned into a cult of shared delusion, and it’s in charge of the USA.

Economic damage, environmental damage, concentration of power with multi-billionaire fascists, cultural damage due to huge quantities of slop crowding out everything else, mass unemployment and the exploitation of remaining workers, disempowerment of everyone who doesn’t have the resources to control this technology, destruction of ordinary people’s access to suitably powerful computing machinery so that we’re all forced to either rent access to AI from its corporate gatekeepers or not use it, total surveillance by the state and its favoured corporations, profiling and predictive policing, marketing, etc. That’s quite a lot to object to, and I’m sure there’s more.

Intel’s nanometer-ish numbers are BS. They call their 14nm process “Intel 10”, their 10nm process “Intel 7”, their 7nm “Intel 4”, etc. As far as I know, other companies are more truthful.

And based not in science but in MAGA’s drunken manosphere delusions.

Israel is the country of rape, torture and genocidal mass murder. That’s its reputation in the world now, and we all see it clearly.

I don’t know, but “testosterone replacement therapy” is most certainly gender-affirming care. But since they’re not forcing it, I assume this is to institutionalize the bullying and harassment of men the testosterone-addled meatheads don’t consider manly enough or women they consider too manly. And we can expect that to include routinely accusing those without the “right” amount of testosterone of being transgender and kicking them out of the military.

As far as I can see it doesn’t improve that situation. The Google Play Store may be forced to list alternative app stores, but by default the only apps that will install on Android, no matter which store they are downloaded from, are those whose developer has registered with Google, and where Google has approved both the developer and the app. So Google can still censor any app or developer they (or the US Government) consider inconvenient.

Google promises a slightly laborious workaround for this, but they don’t say how long the workaround will remain available.

Continuing that unbroken streak of bad artistic decisions towards an inevitable Star Wars Special 50th Anniversary Slop Edition reissue.

“You guys can mock me for not knowing that. I worked about 22 hours in the last few days and I did not get the briefing on that. I will this morning,” he added.

Not 22 hours in one day, but 22 hours in a few days. Which means at least 3 days, which means less than 8 hours a day. Mike Johnson’s concept of extreme hard work is less than the least demanding full-time job.

You paid for it twice: once with your own money when you bought things and the companies passed the tariff costs on to you, and once with your taxes when they refunded the tariffs to the companies.

Maybe we could ask the AI to do that thinking bit then tell us what to say.

They watch Black Mirror and they see a world in which ordinary people have to obey the wishes of the rich and powerful or they suffer. And they like what they see.

It’s from 2013, when Google released Google Glass, the first glasses containing a screen and camera. The backlash to that was exactly like the backlash today towards glasses with cameras. The techbros just hoped we had forgotten.

Will his cult finally figure out who is responsible for their gas prices going up? Of course not.