Well the openstreetmap community aren’t employed by a bunch of hacks perching on a tower of cardboard held together by a failing scheme of duck tape that nobody left after all the layoffs and enshittification knows how to repair, so that makes sense : )
Great, here is a question, if you believe Xenophobia keeps you from being a true world leader, in what ways has the US been denied its rightful place as world leader by its own xenophobia?
Say what you will about America and our racism problem
You can stop there, lets talk about that
The gulf of mexico vs gulf of america thread on the Open Street Map forum is interesting and worth a read.
https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/gulf-of-america-gulf-of-mexico/124571
Yeah I know that is how they see it but the generational wave they have been coasting on was the fact that computer nerdy kids would learn the ins and outs of windows software long before even entering the workplace.
Microsoft has been taking advantage of the fact that kids like me would be so excited to learn computers that they would learn the basics of just poking around the desktop before they could read.
Nowadays that is gone, there is no playful connection and the sea of change will butterfly effect consequences into the future and cause a million symptoms of an issue we all know microsoft will never actually value or address.
Microsoft has been functioning this entire time with a special unspoken in with nerdy kids who grow up to build important and valuable computer tools. Microsot has steamrolled that, and on the scale of 10+ years I am not sure there will be anything Microsoft can actually do to mitigate the strategic defeat that is going to cause even if they are able to be honest and lucid about it.
More and more computer nerdy kids are going to learn the shit out of Linux because it is where they game and it feels welcoming to them (i.e. it doesn’t feel like sneaking into a suffocatingly boring office full of identical cubicles that gives periodic blaring notifications on a gambling casino nobody your parents know can afford called the Stock Market).
I can’t understate how much this will lead to microsoft completely losing the plot, because no one could ever suggest this as a danger in a microsoft boardroom and be taken as seriously as they should.
gets popcorn I for one and going to enjoy the show
Same, Microsoft is about to force my laptop to update and I am about to own zero devices that run Windows.
There is no coming back either, which is what makes the schadenfeude of Microsoft (the dog) really actually catching the car this time so funny and satisfying.
I think it is going to make heads spin how fast the idea that Windows has unassailable hegemony in the desktop space becomes an antiquated idea. There is an asteroid in the sky, and the time of dinosaurs is over.
All the alarm bells should be going off at Microsoft hq and I know they probably feel like they are sitting pretty and feel nice and future proofed in their business plan, it is amazing and makes my heart sing.
Sorry not sorry you law breaking, monopoly chasing, morally bankrupt losers. You might be richer than I ever will be, but lets be honest, that is because I have standards about what I am willing to do for money.
Disgusting and scary.
I think it isn’t just about the algorithm of moderation not being perfect, the nature of the moderation problem itself demands an answer of a fuzzy type.
Any single moderation system can never create an acceptable and stable solution. The distortion from edge cases, trolls that exploit them and outside bullshit inveitably leads to toxicity and centralization under a harsh group think (censorship of palestinian voices on bluesky being one example).
Any real solution to the problem must be of an architecture of diversity, with many different moderation policies and authorities that 99% of the time agree in spirit (until they don’t and then sometimes a difficult parting of ways occurs).
It is much more difficult to prey on a community as a nazi troll when every damn fediverse instance seems to draw the red line differently and not only does that make being a toxic edgey boi much harder especially if you have no functioning moral compass left… but also somehow even with all that disgusting lack of conformity every single progressive community immediately recognizes you for being a nazi.
I mean this isn’t actually that complicated, we just live in a moment where we have materially disempowered artists and creatives who understand this kind of thing implicitly.
In a reality where the tech press had any sense of vision or independence the headline would simply read “Ok Now Your Turn Oligarchs”,
Too bad Luigi isn’t a cop, then they might have given him a slap on the wrist and a description of events in the media that read “last night the trigger of Luigi’s self defense weapon caused ignition in the barrel which resulted in a bullet being ejected at high speed. Healthcare provider and loyal family man Brian Thomson was tragically caught in the path of the (*several) bullets. Authorities are investigating the bullets to determine their motive.”
I’m sorry I am not trying to dispute the spirit of your respose but I have to disagree, freight trains are thousands of feet long and haul unbelievably large quantities of material, the idea that it is inefficient to have a human (really a pair of humans) oversee and be responsible for a machine that large is laughable honestly.
…so is the idea that there is a genuine shortage of people willing to work as conductors, it is a convenient lie companies tell to rationalize why nobody wants to work for them because they pay shit and respect their employees so little that they won’t even give them unpaid time for necessary doctors appointments (see recent action of US train workers).
This point is even more true for passenger trains.
It is a massive responsibility we can afford to pay two humans to do it, a certain micro amount of inefficiency is ok.
Why do we need to get rid of the job of human radio presenter?
Techbros keep telling me AI frees people up to stop working shitty jobs and pursue their dreams, but the truth is none of these tech evangelists give a shit about anyone’s dreams if they aren’t some lame vision of factorio where the factories pollute the planet churning out ripoffs of human culture.
In the US and other post industrialized nations where land is more valuable for other uses than agriculture, sure.
However the deforestation in the amazon probably eats most of that up.
Cutting trees down for wood isn’t the worst of it though, the first half of the 21st century will be categorized by climate change scientists as the period where earth’s boreal forests burned away.
The amount of boreal foresl acreage burned in the last two decades is staggering and is accelerating to put it mildly.
lol like buttigieg would do ANY of that, do you remember how hard and fast he flipflopped on universal healthcare?
While not perfect, I feel the Democratic side can be fixed.
Where is your evidence for that?
If you don’t actually have any please top distacting us from talking about actual solutions.
I don’t think you’re talking about the Outlook I am talking about because I’m talking about the Outlook Mail and Calendar apps, not the Office ones. And that’s fine and dandy about proprietary software and all but frankly I haven’t really seen any non-proprietary mail apps that look aesthetically pleasing. But that’s besides the point, it’s a matter of personal preference when it comes to visuals after all.
… I am not just talking about little details and preferences here? Windows products are increasingly broken and dysfunctional at every level. Features don’t work, features are randomly changed and broken, nothing is consistent, core features of the computer are made opaque, any given Linux package manager is about 1000000 times more trustable than the ad ridden, sketchy, bloatware filled Windows store where you have to hunt for actually useful and trustable tools. One of my old bosses had his work windows computer update to a new windows OS without really asking him (technically it did, but then it just kept scheduling an OS upgrade until he missed it). It didn’t break his computer, but he had thousands and thousands of hours of cad drafting work on that computer and Windows could have EASILY fucked up in the update process, or the old software we were using could have EASILY not been compatible. Windows basically flipped a coin for whether they were going to utterly grind my bosses business to a halt and cause utter panic or just have the computer update. This is not “user friendly” software design, this is not “easy to use software made by an extremely competent software company”.
I’d also like to add, nowhere did I ever mention using laptops. All my experiences are with desktops that I had a hand in building from scratch. So I’m not sure what you’re even getting at with those assumptions.
…because for 99% of people who are going to be using a computer for light email, research and text editing work they are going to be using a laptop? I don’t really understand what about my argument doesn’t apply to windows prebuilts that have good driver support for linux…?
It’s somewhat concerning that you have such a strong obsession over the topic that you would go and whether intentionally or unintentionally offend people and I hope that you are a much more pleasant person to converse with outside of this topic or even this site.
I think it is completely reasonable to be upset when someone is condescendingly foreclosing the possibility that something can happen when the evidence they are using for it is outdated and they refuse to update it in their heads. The only response at that point when someone refuses to re-evaluate their position and continues to “speak for the group” when they really don’t represent the group anymore is to make it even clearer that they don’t speak for a group, and I am sorry if my method offended here, I believe your heart is in the right place but please stop trying to tell us about how stupid and unwilling people are to learn new things. Please please please just keep your mouth closed, it doesn’t help anyone, period. Even if you were right, there would be nothing to change in our actions as it would just be hopeless to even try?
This isn’t 2015, a good Linux distribution is as polished, easy to use, and easy to explain to a newbie computer user as Windows is. If you aren’t ready to accept that shrugs I mean fine but don’t push your outmoded narrative into conversations that might actually convince someone who doesn’t know about Linux that it isn’t worth checking out as a serious alternative. You are actively doing damage to the future of this software movement by dismissing it offhand like this.
Outlook is atrocious what on earth are you talking about? Just trying to use it at work it is so frustrating and the UI is horrendous for everything. Truly even basic things like trying to read when a meeting actually starts just from looking at the calendar is a headache, and because all of this is proprietary unlike with Linux, tough luck, that is how things are and you can’t do shit to change it. Neither can an experienced computer user trying to help you.
I am sorry you really don’t have an accurate handle on the state of things anymore, I think you are stuck in your ways and stressed out by life and you don’t realize that emotion and lack of mental plasticity is leading to you assume everyone else is as stuck in their ways as you (including your future self when you are able to feel less overworked and stressed).
Windows is atrocious at this point, search doesn’t work and purposefully confuses new computer users about where is being searched and what is being searched. Ads pop up everywhere in the UI and will continue to spread like a terminal cancer in the UI.
Search on windows also just sucks and takes ages with the default settings (an inexperienced computer user will be using).
The file manager on windows in most marquee windows programs like word, excel etc… all open up an entirely different file manager half way through the process of saving a file in perhaps the most insane UI pattern to keep from the mess that was Windows 8 (even though I actually really liked the core idea at first).
Windows is buggy AND windows is constantly playing head games with its user by trying to force them to use the edge browser. It is very very confusing to a new computer user what the hell is even going on.
I mean, Windows illegally changed the entire operating system countless people had without getting consent because it would look good for their numbers.
Seriously you are WAYYY out of your league if you are going to claim a nice Linux distribution on good hardware with good driver support (such as some dells or thinkpads) is categorically wayyy worse than trying to use a windows laptop in 2024….
…please get your head out of the sand :)
I mean do you want to get into the massive security vulnerability at a tactical and strategic level that Microsoft’s co-pilot represents? This is endgame for business security, Windows is in a worse spot than it has been in probably a decade at least and they deserve it. IT people and corporations have to seriously wonder if Windows even cares about following the law, which makes trusting Windows for the software relied upon by their company a complex question indeed……
It used to be that Linux was better ideologically because it gave you agency over your computer, but now things have gotten so much worse that the reason is practical and no longer ideological.
Bringing it back to the whole thing about Linux, can you imagine how frustrating it would be to have to help debug a user’s Linux installation when they already need help with installing a browser add on? I work with tech and Linux on a daily basis and I already find it frustrating doing it for myself (fuck Nvidia drivers). No way am I gonna recommend it to someone else.
Are you honestly going to still claim at this late date of 2024 that a decent popular linux distro is actually going to be MORE of a headache than Windows?
…?
Have you tried Windows recently?
Can y’all IT people please stop with the condescending “you don’t know how stupid people are about computers”, it seems like there is always one of you showing up in a comment thread to tell us that we can’t have the future literally all of us want including you all as well… because WE are too stupid and lazy about computers.
I helped a grown ass human who was my age at 40yo how to install a Firefox extension.
Were you as condescending to them in person as you are being in referencing them right now? Why is not knowing how to install a Firefox extension some indicator of foreclosure on the possibility of that person becoming computer literate along whatever metrics you define? There are plenty of smart people out there who can learn how to use a computer for very complex tasks who have just simply never learned about extensions for Firefox. This is a very feasible and normal reality.
Do you know how to change the oil on your car yourself? Do simple plumbing jobs? Could you run a classroom of middle schoolers and keep them all focused while keeping your eye on the shy sad kid in the back who tends to disappear if you don’t engage them? What about basic healthcare changes or cooking? What about outdoor work or basic small engine maintenance? Do you even know shit about the most basic species of trees in your backyard? Do you know the species of songbirds you often hear outside your window? Do you even pay attention to that? Do you know how to drive a dirt bike extremely fast on a rough dirt road? Do you know how to adjust for the violent explosive power of turbo lag in a car with a turbocharger so that torque oversteer doesn’t launch you off the road? Do you know how to sew and repair basic garments? To weave? Can you even fish? Like could you literally even just catch a fish to save your life right now if I handed you a fishing rod unassembled with no instructions?
My point is, don’t go looking for confirmation of how stupid or lazy people are or how limited their capacity is to evolve and grow by casting the shapes of their ignorance onto the floor and trying to read some magic language from that.
Maybe they don’t know because they are hopelesssly stupid, but maybe not? If they are intelligent and they don’t know computers then those are the perfect people to teach linux. Then it is their first language instead of windows, many linux distro are perfectly fine for this at this point.
See here is the bottom line, legions of IT people show up online always arguing they think they know that the average person is too dumb, lazy and uninterested in computers for Linux adoption to seriously take off in the personal computer market and challenge Microsoft, but y’all don’t know shit about humans. You are experts in computers who think that makes you experts in human potential.
Go take some theater classes (or get an degree in education) and get educated before you start drawing conclusions about people when you really haven’t spent time closely studying how people engage with their potential and what situations facilitate that in basic human interaction and framing of conversations (both literal and abstract).
I’m sorry if I snapped at you but I think it is existentially important to recognize here that we don’t know what people are capable of, you can’t know the essential capacity of people to change, don’t try to predict it. Focus on creating the material opportunity for change and the rest may follow depending on what people desire, no matter to us, we desire to create that positive opportunity for change because it is the right thing to do, not because we like the future growth charts of the things we believe are important and vital.
There are also going to be lots of talent who permanently leave the industry because there are no longer any stable decent paying jobs at larger studios.