[HN Gopher] We will win the war for general-purpose computing
___________________________________________________________________
We will win the war for general-purpose computing
Author : d_h_j
Score : 129 points
Date : 2021-07-16 18:24 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (cheapskatesguide.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (cheapskatesguide.org)
| a3n wrote:
| I just can't stop reading this ...
| rektide wrote:
| My biggest fear isn't technical, it's cultural. Computing doesn't
| feel like it's winning hearts & minds. Computing gets further &
| further away, less and less personal, less intelligible, more
| mystical every year. We accept more magic into our lives, & the
| sense of engagement, the sense of ownership, the idea of personal
| computing feels like it's fading.
|
| I'm techno-optimist, but there's going to be such a huge lag
| between the wins we start to make, the re-free-ing up of
| computing, & any significance or adoption. We need to re-liberate
| computing, make the technical victories, before we can even begin
| to fight the real general-purpose computing war. The dream of
| computing needs to be re-kindled.
| user-the-name wrote:
| Maybe you aren't winning hearts and minds because you aren't
| actually offering something people want. Maybe you aren't going
| to re-kindle any dreams because you are not offering anything
| worth dreaming about.
| rektide wrote:
| > Maybe you aren't winning hearts and minds because you
| aren't actually offering something people want.
|
| I feel like most people have no idea what tech is offering.
|
| There have been some special purpose projects (FreedomBox,
| NextCloud, &c) that have specific ideas, but the relatively
| new YUNoHost is a fairly new breed of examples to create an
| easy to run way to get people started hosting their own
| stuff. https://yunohost.org/
|
| Federated model is interesting, in that it means not everyone
| has to operate their stuff. Instead, we have protocols of
| interoperability, and lots of hosts. That gives people the
| experience faster, but yes, it's still currently sub-par. And
| most importantly, there's no Competitive Compatibility
| (ComCom, formerly called Adversarial Interopability), so most
| things we write will not interlace with & work with people's
| existing networks.
|
| > Maybe you aren't going to re-kindle any dreams because you
| are not offering anything worth dreaming about.
|
| You're welcome to your opinion on that. Indeed right now is a
| good time to question this. General purpose computing is a
| very nebulous header, with a lot of different ideas.
| Certainly there's the negative-liberties we can see slipping
| away, as DRM, as cloud-computing removes us from power over
| our systems. The appliance-ization of computing is indeed the
| forefront of what people think about when they think about
| general purpose computing, and I tend to agree, that a far
| more revolutionary outlook with much further reaching
| positive-liberties is what we ought to be dreaming about. The
| difficulty is that these endless open frontiers are still
| unsure: each of us has to carry our own little light, try to
| figure out who elses light to join with, where-as the big
| huge forces of the world & their snuffing-of-the-light is
| much more visible, apparent, easy to rally around. So we need
| to make some traction on the big dreams forwards, we need
| something encompassing, and bold that floods people's
| imagination with possibility & excitement.
|
| This is just my 2c, but the ubiquotous & pervasive computing
| world, I think, spoke to a vector of computing as cross-
| system, as connected, that currently is almost entirely anti-
| General-Purpose. We don't have good open general systems for
| working cross system. This is one hub of capability that we
| need to encompass into our dreams, that needs to be part of
| the General, for the General to get far. But it's just one
| piece, just one aspect. The dream needs to immerse us fully.
|
| I think work's like Karli Coss's data-liberation is basically
| the ground floor of where we need to start. This is still
| early prototype stage, basically, but we need wide-spanning
| access to a huge cross-section of the digital (in much easier
| to pull off manners) to even begin to allow the interesting
| dreaming to begin, to begin to inspire each other:
| https://beepb00p.xyz/myinfra.html
| jopsen wrote:
| Perhaps the market for GP computing just is smaller than.. the
| market for magic smartphone.
|
| We tend to think everyone needs to do computing, and understand
| the technology they rely. But I don't understand the magic that
| goes into the medicine I take. Nor do I have an understanding
| of how the electricity grid operates. My computer just
| magically gets power!
|
| The market for commoditized computing is just bigger than
| general computing. That doesn't mean GP will go away.
| rektide wrote:
| I run into this all the time. but medicine doesn't get called
| "bicycle for the mind".
|
| The question of market share is uninteresting to me, now. We
| have zero idea what the market is. The ecosystem is
| unhealthy, rotting, consumer dissent is skyrocketing (see the
| Freedom Phone yesterday as a rife example). Fixing this
| situation is not doable in 18 months though. We don't fix the
| war on general purpose computing with a product launch
| (although pinephone aloneight singlehandedly jump start the
| sea change). This market based mentality though I find so
| reductionist & off base, besides the point. We have so much
| pioneering to do in computing. so much freeing people to
| enable them to begin to think.
| musicale wrote:
| Steve Wozniak wanted - and built - a pre-assembled computer
| for tinkerers and engineers; it also turned out to have some
| mass market appeal as a game and spreadsheet machine, and
| Apple made a fair amount of money selling it to hobbyists,
| gamers, schools, and businesses.
|
| Steve Jobs realized that computing appliances (from computers
| that you couldn't open up to handheld music/game/app/phone
| devices) for people who typically had little or no interest
| in tinkering or engineering ("the rest of us") was a much
| larger market. Apple claimed the high margin section of that
| market and became one of the wealthiest companies on the
| planet.
|
| I recall a story about Jobs being opposed to hardware - and
| software! - upgrades for the original Mac because "you don't
| upgrade your toaster." That's precisely the thinking behind
| the iPod, iPhone, iPad, and Apple watch - except Apple now
| knows that you'll have to buy a new internet-connected
| toaster every few years if they stop producing security bug
| fixes for your old one.
| collaborative wrote:
| I enjoyed the first half but then it became a bit of a rant. It
| also went from praising creativity to vilifying developers who
| make you "require an internet connection". Everything is
| connected nowadays, especially now that we are forced to offer
| websites as "apps". And just as websites constantly change, so do
| apps require regular updates. For basic reasons such as
| compatibility, UX, etc It's not all black and white. But I agree,
| we will win. And I suspect the big players already know this,
| that might help explain their obsession to squeeze every cent
| from their market dominance
| eterevsky wrote:
| > Climate change is in the process of teaching us that mono-
| cultures built in the service of a few powerful industries are a
| risk.
|
| Sorry for nitpicking but... Climate change is an indirect
| consequence of industrial revolution. Industrial revolution has
| saved orders of magnitude more lives and fed more people than
| climate change is likely to affect.
| Kototama wrote:
| So let's say industrial revolution started 400 years ago (more
| or less). How long you think climate change will impact life on
| earth?
| zmmmmm wrote:
| I read through several pages before giving up and jumping to the
| end ... but what I saw gave no objective reason that the war will
| be won, this is pure hope or maybe a "call to arms". I actually
| don't see any convincing reason why we'll "win" this war and in
| fact I feel like we are on the precipice of becoming permanently
| locked out from it ever being possible. The main reason is the
| complex web of laws interacting established platforms that make
| it effectively illegal for any new competitor to ever become
| established. All over the world governments are starting to
| regulate complex and specific requirements around security,
| surveillance, encryption, etc that are fundamentally incompatible
| with true "general purpose" computing. For example, if your
| computer can encrypt things without a backdoor then authorities
| cannot listen. But if it can't then by definition it is not a
| general purpose computer. Which is it going to be? I think
| governments will win and we will lose general purpose computing.
| Taek wrote:
| I think we will win because locked down platforms are
| fundamentally less powerful and less suitable for innovation
| than open platforms.
|
| We are reaching a turning point where even the brightest minds
| struggle to generate major innovations on the locked down web.
| You can't build "the next Facebook" on the web as it is today
| because the incumbent powers suffocate you so effectively.
|
| Conversely, the dweb is flush right now with innovation and new
| ideas, with an ecosystem of builders that are excited to share
| and compound off of eachother's ideas.
|
| I believe that at maturity, the dweb will run absurd agile
| circles around the lockdown web.
| TrainedMonkey wrote:
| Counterpoint: closed platforms will continue to account to
| majority of users because innovation available to open
| platforms is counterbalanced by massive amount of capital
| available to closed platforms.
| leereeves wrote:
| > You can't build "the next Facebook" on the web as it is
| today because the incumbent powers suffocate you so
| effectively.
|
| TikTok and Zoom aren't exactly the next Facebook (yet), but
| they both compete effectively against the incumbent powers.
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| FYI: Dweb decentralised web.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/sep/08/decentral.
| ..
|
| I'm still not sure what it is but I kind of get the idea.
| mftb wrote:
| Right and that's one of the ways that we can recognize it's
| an interesting area. Once it's understood, the problems
| well-bounded, the window has generally closed. Of course
| there is also risk, sometimes we've wandered too far afield
| and we're just out in the weeds.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Where do you see the decentralized web innovating or winning?
| aaron_m04 wrote:
| > You can't build "the next Facebook" on the web as it is
| today because the incumbent powers suffocate you so
| effectively.
|
| I don't doubt this suffocation is real, but isn't it really
| the strong network effects that Facebook benefits from which
| stops somebody from "building the next FB"?
| Taek wrote:
| Facebook refuses to let anyone else tap those network
| effects, that's what's suffocating. Remember when Facebook
| and Twitter and everyone else had these amazing robust APIs
| you could build entire startups on top of? Then when they
| killed hundreds of companies overnight by turning them off?
|
| In the dweb, those APIs can't be shut off. Those hundreds
| of innovative companies would still be alive and adding
| value to the world.
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| I love the dweb! At the risk of going a bit off-topic,
| which dweb projects are you interested in?
| MomoXenosaga wrote:
| I don't see the point. You still have the network effect:
| people aren't going to install 20 social media apps.
|
| Take WhatsApp: the technology behind it is ridiculously
| simple.
| megameter wrote:
| The thing that has always defanged authorities of the past is
| organizational inability to see where the game is changing. And
| the game has gone on for a long time - villages would do all
| sorts of things to operate outside of the vision of the local
| lords.
|
| The probable source of disruption comes from people one step
| removed from the top who see an opportunity to shake up the
| system and turn an activist message into opportunistic gain.
| This is why we often see waves of "anti-corruption" campaigns,
| sudden policy shifts, etc. The politicians see a trend forming
| and jump on to it. When they get in power they walk some of it
| back, but they can't turn back the clock all the way.
|
| The source of a trend towards GPC comes from a series of "small
| wins" like the recent breakthroughs in Right to Repair, from IP
| that has recently expired, and from nationalistic
| competition("world's free-est country" will always be a title
| up for grabs).
|
| It only takes one little country that's a "hacker haven" to
| jump ahead of the rest for a clamor to erupt. The dominant
| players will conclude that the answer is to strongarm that
| country into the hegemonic framework; others in weaker
| positions will see opportunities in jumping on. Then the fight
| is waged economically, and if the resulting products and
| services are desirable, concessions are made.
| bakugo wrote:
| I agree. I think the reaction to the recent reveal of Windows
| 11's TPM requirement shows that we have basically no chance of
| winning this war because the average computer owner of the
| 2020s is simply not intelligent or educated enough to know when
| they're being screwed over. They hear "it's for your security!"
| and immediately roll over like trained dogs.
| [deleted]
| darklion wrote:
| What bothers me is the idea that we can only have one type of
| computing--that for general-purpose computing to exist, we _have_
| to kill off every other kind of computing.
|
| This is not a zero-sum game. We can have console-style computers
| _and_ general purpose computers, and they can both exist
| simultaneously without one having to win and the other having to
| lose.
| ur-whale wrote:
| >We can have console-style computers and general purpose
| computers
|
| Up until the time you try to get your non-GP computer to do
| something the manufacturer didn't want you to, such as
| retrieving some data locked in your Android phone.
| rhn_mk1 wrote:
| The original essay about general purpose computing points out
| that it's the underpinning of the "special-purpose computing",
| and that the "general" part will always bubble to the surface,
| unless users' freedom to own their devices is taken away.
|
| So the meaning of "war on general computing" is closer to "war
| on ownership". Sure, owned and unowned computers can both
| coexist, but it's not clearly a good thing to allow someone
| else to control one's devices.
| walterbell wrote:
| The economics of mass-production don't work as market sizes
| shrink, you can observe this by comparing MP3 player prices and
| selection today vs a decade ago.
| [deleted]
| bakugo wrote:
| >We can have console-style computers and general purpose
| computers, and they can both exist simultaneously without one
| having to win and the other having to lose.
|
| No, we really can't, and you probably didn't read the article
| if you think we can.
|
| Making general purpose computers and the software to support
| them is less profitable than making smartphone-ish locked down
| computers. It's just a fact. The corporations will gravitate
| towards the most profitable options, as they always do.
|
| "But as long as there's a market, even small, someone will make
| them" you say. But you're forgetting that computers don't exist
| in isolation. They just don't work that well on their own. The
| main reason they're so useful is because of networking. You can
| be running a computer with 100% free software, but you will
| probably still use online services that are not free. You need
| to use them to live a normal life in the world of today.
|
| But thanks to hardware DRM, you might not be able to use these
| non-free services on a free device for much longer. Do you know
| what happens when you try to open the McDonalds app on an
| android phone running a custom operating system? It doesn't
| run. The server tells you to fuck off. It sends a message to
| your device's TrustZone, a black box security chip that you
| have absolutely no control over, asking if the device is
| running an original locked-down OS. The chip signs the response
| with its own private keys that cannot be extracted and sends it
| back to the server, which can then decide to reject you if it's
| not the response it wants. This is the reality of smartphones.
| It's not a joke.
|
| And now, with Windows 11 requiring a TPM chip which is just
| TrustZone for x86, this is coming to desktops. And everyone is
| eating it up, to the point where TPM expansion boards went up
| in price after the announcement. Nothing will stop it.
|
| 10 years from now you will try to open some random popular
| website on your linux computer and it will not work. It will
| detect that you are not running an authorized system and reject
| your request. Want to order food? Too bad, use a locked down
| device. Want to buy something and have it delivered to you? Too
| bad, use a locked down device. Want to access your bank's
| website to check your account, or even just spend money? Too
| bad, use a locked down device. The bank part is already a
| reality, many banks today require verification using their app
| before letting you make online purchases, and the app only
| works on locked down smartphones.
|
| Eventually, when enough network services stop working on
| "general purpose computers", 99.9% of the population will not
| want to use them anymore and they will disappear.
| dane-pgp wrote:
| Unfortunately you are exactly right about what DRM/TPM is
| going to do to computers. Once Windows 11 reaches 50%
| marketshare, some Western government is going to demand that
| ISPs in their country not allow anyone online unless they are
| using a government-approved OS. Then they will require OSes
| and app stores to ban Tor and E2E encrypted chat apps.
|
| Perhaps they won't go so far as to kick Windows 10 computers
| off the internet, but they might at least restrict them to
| certain sites and protocols. They could also say that people
| running "unsafe" OSes must install a government-issued CA
| certificate, to allow TLS interception.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| I genuinely wish I could give more mod points. This is
| already happening. If there is going to be a war, its outcome
| is far from a given ( and I personally worry, general
| computing will be on the losing side ).
|
| The only thing that could stop is us. We are still creating
| the building blocks that make it all happen. It is not like
| we do not stand a chance, but it is hard not to feel
| pessimistic about the outcome since just about every
| communication from the power centers can be summed up with
| 'moar powah, moar'.
| acomjean wrote:
| You can start to see the restrictions creeping in. It seems
| inexpensive tablets don't play videos from the the major
| vendor (Netflix/amazon/hbo) if the hardware/os don't support
| "Widevine" drm solution.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widevine
| [deleted]
| disabled wrote:
| After about 50 installs of Ubuntu, I finally have the perfect
| setup, with all of the packages and configurations I want. I have
| an install script (executed using bash) to do all of the work).
|
| My configuration: Ubuntu with a QEMU/KVM Windows 10 GPU
| Passthrough. I also have my [Ubuntu] desktop configured to look
| like a Mac. It looks amazing! :-D See: https://ibb.co/WV97vnj
|
| But before I did all of that: When I would set up a new OS, one
| of the first steps I do is install a screen recorder with webcam
| recording. I would record the setup process with the screen
| recorder and the webcam going and I would also talk through the
| setup. But, the key is to put (copy/paste) all of your executed
| scripts that you used during setup into a text file--and then
| email it to yourself prior to abandoning the setup process).
| Also, I upload the video to my NAS for later review, to help with
| making more refined setups, and also to add notes/comments to the
| bash setup script.
|
| With regards to my setup: the Ubuntu is the primary operating
| system, but in reality, it works in tandem with the Windows 10. I
| basically use Ubuntu and Windows 10 in tandem, and it works much
| better than WSL 2 (Windows Subsystem for Linux 2).
|
| In fact, I can even play games in virtual reality with this
| setup! (But, in reality: I only truly need Windows 10 for heavy
| reading as I have a print-related disability known as severe
| convergence insufficiency. The screenreaders in Linux just do not
| cut it. Also MacOS screenreaders also do not cut it for STEM
| work.)
|
| Anyways, here is a good rudimentary "guide" which illustrates the
| thought process needed to create the QEMU/KVM Windows 10
| Passthrough. See: https://pastebin.com/5tuvWTMH
|
| As for making Ubuntu look like MacOS, see this (ignore the
| dashboard part--as there is a better guide):
| https://medium.com/@shahriarazizaakash/make-your-linux-ubunt...
|
| Here is the best guide for the MacOS dashboard (go to the "plank"
| part and follow the instructions from there to create the best
| and most realistic MacOS dashboard for Ubuntu):
| https://linuxconfig.org/how-to-install-macos-theme-on-ubuntu...
| Animats wrote:
| I can see the day coming when few people will have general-
| purpose computers. Those will be the people who make things, and
| also have a good set of tools and maybe a milling machine.
|
| This has already happened with phones and tablets, after all. And
| Chromebooks. And Windows 365. And Windows S. And locked-down
| enterprise machines.
| ur-whale wrote:
| I can see the day coming when owning and operating one of those
| will require the equivalent of a carry permit.
|
| And just like for weapons, none of the iphone and chromebook
| users will understand what the fuss is all about, who would
| want to use one of these anyways.
| user-the-name wrote:
| And is there really anything wrong with that? Every house
| doesn't need a milling machine. Why should every house need a
| general purpose computer?
| rektide wrote:
| > And is there really anything wrong with that? Every house
| doesn't need a milling machine. Why should every house need a
| general purpose computer?
|
| Why not have general purpose computing? Computers are vastly
| powerful machines that could be useful over very very long
| amounts of time. By allowing closed, proprietary locked down
| applianceization of computing, we create expensive high-tech
| consumer devices which seem to quickly (within 5 years)
| become unsupported, obsolete, unmaintainable, & unrepairable.
|
| Computers have nearly endless uses & applications, until we
| artificially restrict that. Society ought to try to keep
| computing general, because it allows for us to adapt & update
| systems along with the times. Nothing but general purpose
| computing seems to be renewable. Why should we have other
| forms of computing?
| HideousKojima wrote:
| If every house had a 3d printer, or a milling machine, or a
| small chip fab, or insert home manufacturing machine here,
| they would be far less dependent on a handful of established
| players for things like replacement parts etc. And much more
| immune against government regulation seeking to control thme
| and what they can buy/own/do.
| hytdstd wrote:
| Yes, you're absolutely right. So what do _you_ think is
| stopping every household from buying a 3d printer
| /mill/whatever?
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| I don't think these are for every household. Right now a
| 3D printer is incredibly useful if you're really willing
| to put in the work to learn, optimise, and even design
| your own parts.
|
| Joe soap is never going to do that or even want to do
| that. He doesn't even have a need for parts, after all he
| doesn't repair his stuff, he just throws it away and buys
| new stuff.
|
| Perhaps he'll buy a 3D printer when he can go to Amazon
| and click "print" instead of "order". But we're a long
| way from there.
| giantrobot wrote:
| A 3D printer, chip fab, or CNC mill isn't useful without
| feedstock, designs/models, and electricity. So even if
| every household had a bunch of micro-fabrication devices
| the government could still regulate whatever they pleased
| by regulating access between your property and the outside
| world. If everyone had a 3D printer and was manufacturing
| things the government didn't like then PLA/ABS/resin would
| quickly become regulated.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| Not to mention the "printing cartridge model" that some
| manufacturers are already trying to play at.
| Unfortunately this is inevitable as the 3D printing
| industry is getting more commoditised.
| goatlover wrote:
| A majority of people don't want to take the time to make
| their own parts anymore than they want to repair their cars
| or appliances. The article can put convenience in scare
| quotes all it wants and blame mega corporations, but it's
| the reality of consumer preference and specialization in
| complex societies. People's time and motivation are
| limited. Spend time fixing your own stuff or delegate it to
| someone who does it as a profession?
| user-the-name wrote:
| They don't want to be. And that's _fine_. That is why we
| even have a society. We can live better lives by relying on
| others.
| nonameiguess wrote:
| I'm really not sure I see this. Enterprise devices are more
| portable than they used to be, not less. Gone are the days of
| science relying almost exclusively on supercomputers that could
| only run specific proprietary Unixes and basically required
| proprietary compilers. Connection hubs and DSPs doing signal
| translation from various industrial devices and military and
| space communications networks to IP networks have gone from
| almost exclusively ASICs manufactured by one of two companies
| to FPGAs, fully reprogrammable blank slates you can do pretty
| much anything with. Phones and tablets are certainly less
| general purpose than desktop and laptop PCs, but much more
| general purpose than earlier incarnations of phones and tablet-
| like devices such as Palm Pilots, digital address books,
| graphing calculators, flip phones, land lines, things that
| could only do one thing and couldn't have any type of extension
| application installed at all from anyone, whether it was part
| of a walled garden or not. If the average American teenager
| today has nothing but an iPad and iPhone, that isn't completely
| general purpose, but it's a huge improvement on when I was a
| teenager 25 years ago and the closest thing my family had to a
| computer at all was a word processor, not a software suite like
| Word or Lotus but a specialized typewriter with some
| proprietary embedded firmware and no writable memory at all.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> Those will be the people who make things_
|
| Which includes programmers.
| dane-pgp wrote:
| As long as you have paid for your annual "software
| development licence" from the government, and they haven't
| revoked it after finding you breaking "best practices" like
| producing or using encryption software without a government
| backdoor.
| nathanaldensr wrote:
| I hope the software that blocks us from using computers doesn't
| block enough people to where there are no more programmers.
| rektide wrote:
| > Those will be the people who make things, and also have a
| good set of tools and maybe a milling machine.
|
| One of the chief things I hope that home-cloud operators get
| to, quickly, is multi-tenancy. Given how easy it is to take
| some Raspberry Pi's & build a home Kubernetes cluster (or to
| spend $1000 & build a radically better version), the next
| question is: how do we scale that impact?
|
| I'd love for my work to scale to my friends! I used to spend so
| long trying to build ldap into the ftp, http, xmpp, &c self-
| hosted systems I made, thinking one day it might help friends
| too. And I still think that way, but now that vision is less
| about building super-tip-top services to serve everyone, and
| more about building a platform that my friends could run their
| own services on easily, in a reasonable way. #selfhosted, I
| hope, begins to federalize somewhat, that we can selfhost each
| other, via some common, well known platforms that support these
| endeavours to help us build together.
|
| Personally I like to imagine grade school having a half dozen
| servers, and kids getting their own virtual clusters to operate
| as they might, to learn about & immerse themselves in
| computing. This kind of feels like a maker-space sort of idea:
| a collectively owned means of production, an availability of
| tools that is community owned & operated. Ideally in my school
| server model, the kids themselves get the experience (at some
| point) of bootstrapping their own clusters, get the end to end
| experience (take one machine out, format the drive, compile a
| linux kernel, install os, install cluster/platform software,
| join another hardware unit to it). Similar to a rep-rap
| producing another one, sort of; creating the chain of knowledge
| to reproduce & understand.
|
| There's plenty of semi-interesting existing examples to cite
| with regard to collective hosting: the SDF cluster, tilde.club,
| &c. I guess I hope that we can virtualize a little more, give
| more people something closer to their own sovereign little
| spaces on computing hardware, where-as historically these have
| been operated more akin to singular shared spaces.
| quantum_state wrote:
| What war? For GPC? So funny!
| deregulateMed wrote:
| I do my part by using FOSS. My only sin is using Windows at work
| because it's what the Engineers use.
|
| My cellphone OS and web browser are FOSS.
|
| My personal and side project server is FOSS.
|
| I even used GIMP for 10+ years before finally giving adobe 10$ so
| I could knock out a flyer real quick.
|
| I think we all know who the devil in the room is. FOSS fans know
| who the sinners are.
| novok wrote:
| What is your cellphone OS? Is it kind of 'open source' like
| android or something else entirely? How well does it work day
| to day?
|
| Also why go with adobe when there are better companies out
| there like Affinity or Pixelmator?
| petermcneeley wrote:
| "You think you have won! What is light without dark? What are
| you without me? I am a part of you all. You can never defeat
| me. We are brothers eternal!"
|
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089469/characters/nm0000347
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| Cool. Now how do we scale this to everyone else?
| taylodl wrote:
| *> "As users see their smartphones weaponized against them, and
| find few real alternatives, some are expressing fears that Tech
| Giants are plotting an oblique coup in all but name, and
| positioning to usurp national governments with their own brands
| of cybernetic governance. They are building in control and
| exclusion, disinformation, private digital money and surveillance
| capitalism into gadgets we seem unable to step away from. I
| believe this threatens Western liberal democracy, fought for at
| such cost 80 years ago."
|
| And with this hyperbole I stopped reading.
| dane-pgp wrote:
| You don't think that giving the government (or entities even
| less accountable) complete control over online information,
| discussion, and commerce, plus an almost perfect 24/7
| surveillance system, might weaken liberal democracy?
| DantesKite wrote:
| Wish I had GPT-3 to summarize this article for me.
| mcint wrote:
| This wasn't loading for me. Here's an archive link
| https://web.archive.org/web/20210716183740/https://cheapskat...
| halotrope wrote:
| tldr; either you start giving a shit about gpc or it will be gone
| for good.
| dane-pgp wrote:
| Program or be programmed.
| [deleted]
| boznz wrote:
| Spot on.
|
| I spend 3-5 years getting the perfect PC setup only to have it
| knocked down again every time I get a new PC and all the settings
| have moved, half the programs that used to work now either wont
| or has a replacement that's not quite what I want.
|
| I am not against progress but I just need to work so I now
| specifically keep the last two generations of my PC offline just
| so I can compile a clients firmware or modify a PCB with the same
| environment I developed it on. The next generations of
| development environments are going on-line so it may not be an
| option for me.
|
| At one point I designed complex communications systems from ISO
| layer 1 to layer 7 but these days I dont have a clue how to use
| the top layers, they change daily and I the guy in the IT dept to
| fix any issues with my smart phone or connecting to a clients
| network so I feel everyones pain.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| I personally don't mind rethinks. I do this myself often. New
| insights come up all the time, I'm especially enamored with
| tiling window managers right now.
|
| But what I do hate is taking away choice. A lot of these
| 'updates' have actually significantly removed configurability.
| "We removed this option because we don't think you need it"
| happens way too often. A computer exists to serve us. Not for
| us to bend to its will (or its manufacturer's).
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > I spend 3-5 years getting the perfect PC setup
|
| My solution is... don't try to get the perfect setup.
|
| Learn to just be happy with the defaults and get on with what
| matters - the work you're using it for. I change maybe 1 or 2
| settings on a fresh macOS install and that's it. I don't even
| change the wallpaper.
|
| > I just need to work
|
| So don't distract yourself with trying to create the perfect
| setup! Worse is better.
| dane-pgp wrote:
| "Just let Apple decide everything for you, they know best!"
| is exactly the sort of attitude that is causing us to lose
| this war.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| I don't know if Apple know best or not - I didn't say I
| thought that anywhere and I'm not sure who you're quoting -
| the point is the opposite - I _don 't_ care. As long as the
| system is usable, get on and use it and actually focus on
| your work rather than tinkering for the sake of tinkering.
|
| The only war I'm fighting against is wasting my time with
| system setup.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| I think I agree with the article. However it rambles on too much
| and the colour scheme is extremely hostile to my eyes. Sorry. I
| think you have a good point but you need a TL;DR. And please,
| white on hot pink is not a good choice.
| [deleted]
| marcodiego wrote:
| I'm not so hopeful. To have some guarantee of rights and freedoms
| today, some sacrifice in convenience is needed. Most people I
| know who can understand what is at play are not willing so
| sacrifice even a bit of convenience.
|
| The purpose-specific computing is more profitable right now. If
| we make general-purpose computing more attractive, then we may
| have a chance. But even then, compatibility maybe difficult.
| api wrote:
| > The purpose-specific computing is more profitable right now.
|
| If people paid for open general purpose systems and software
| those would be more profitable because people use them more and
| use them for more serious things.
|
| I am very close to deciding that the FOSS movement is partly
| responsible for this dystopia. More specifically it's the
| substituting of free "as in beer" for free "as in freedom."
| These two are actually at odds. Free "as in beer" is the bait
| on the hook for surveillance capitalism.
| deregulateMed wrote:
| Swap all that with "big marketing budget"
|
| You can see how easy politicians can conquer minds, it's no
| surprise trillion dollar companies are able to sell anti
| consumer products at luxury pricing.
|
| "convenience" is just marketing.
| [deleted]
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| This is the kind of thinking causing FOSS or other grassroots
| movements to fail. Convenience is extremely important. Much
| like you don't wake up every day taking pride in
| understanding every aspect of the electrical and water
| distribution to your house or how your car engine works, most
| people don't want to understand how their software works.
| That doesn't mean it shouldn't be easy for folks who _want to
| understand_, but unfortunately a lot of grassroots software
| just gatekeeps this way. The result is the slow death of GPC
| as users use the thing that's easy and there's no privacy or
| freedom-respecting alternatives that non-technical users can
| actually use.
| api wrote:
| > "convenience" is just marketing.
|
| No, it isn't. This is intentional ignorance and if people
| keep believing it we will absolutely lose. This kind of
| thinking goes all the way back to the 1980s and 1990s when
| people said "GUIs are for wimps" and became increasingly
| irrelevant as everyone started using GUIs.
|
| When I am driving and need turn by turn directions, if I have
| to take extra steps to get my maps app to work I might have
| to pull over or might try to do it while driving and crash.
| My map app must "just work."
|
| If I'm about to give a talk and I plug in the projector's
| HDMI cable and my video driver crashes and I have to load up
| a config file, I look amateurish. My video subsystem must
| "just work."
|
| If I'm trying to close a deal and can't share a document, the
| deal may fail and revenue could be lost. People might even
| lose their jobs. My collaboration system must "just work."
|
| I could keep going.
|
| Convenience is extremely important in the real world. It
| saves time, money, and even lives.
| deregulateMed wrote:
| Are you implying the heavily marketed alternative works
| better?
|
| Haha I missed more streets with their map program, their
| music store is more complicated, and their podcast app is
| more buggy.
|
| It's marketing.
| [deleted]
| simonh wrote:
| I agree, things people don't value themselves is often
| dismissed as 'marketing'. No these are just things other
| people value more than you do, and convenience is massively
| important. Without a lot of effort put into convenience
| there are lots of technologies many, even most non-
| technical people would never be able to even use.
| stadium wrote:
| Google's project ara seemed like a good step in that direction, a
| smartphone with modular and replaceable components. But it died.
|
| Anyone have lessons learned from that experiment?
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Ara
| MomoXenosaga wrote:
| The lesson is that cheap mass produced Chinese shit wins every
| time over complicated hacker dreams.
|
| https://www.androidauthority.com/xiaomi-apple-europe-report-...
| hytdstd wrote:
| Maybe simplest is best: Google, the company with pockets deep
| enough to develop and market Glass, couldn't see the business
| proposition in Ara.
| OnionBlender wrote:
| I don't know why that project died but I'm not surprised. It
| reminds me of how smart phones used to have removable batteries
| and were easier to replace parts for but many consumers
| preferred to buy slim phones that couldn't be opened.
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